Can’t we have Comprehensive Vision for $5 Trillion Economy by 2025?

Can’t we have Comprehensive Vision for $5 Trillion Economy by 2025?

B.Chandrasekaran, works in public policies.

At a time when the economy is moving towards a downward spiral rapidly, the most contested public debate among economists is about the rationale of achieving a $5 trillion economy by 2025. Largely, the debate is about whether the economic growth slowdown is temporary or likely to be the longer and an economist's terms “cyclical” or “structural” trend. In the process, the best of minds seems to be undermining the sectoral focus of the most critical sub-sectors which have large junk of labour forces in the economy.

The vision of a $5 trillion economy by 2025 was first announced on October 11, 2018, by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India. The ministry also announced that “the underlying strengths” and "dynamics provide us grounds to target achieving 1 trillion dollars from agriculture and allied activities, 1 trillion from manufacturing and 3 trillion from services" sectors. In November, 2018, the Modi Government had also released the Niti Aayog’s “Strategy for New India@75” which aims to achieve “a USD 4.0 trillion economy” by 2022. However, the vision of a $5 trillion economy by 2025 has become the main agenda for all policy templates.

Though, there are several underpinning challenges and opportunities in the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors which have been failed to articulate in the Working Group Report of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to achieve the $5 trillion economy by 2025. More importantly, the growth of the manufacturing sector has been stagnated for decades which need to be strategically unleashed by reforming the land and labour laws. Further, the Report’s identified measures for specific policy actions in sectors are not in tune with the ground realities. Also, the Niti Aayog’s strategy document’s sectoral visions are not in confirmatory with the government’s actions in the implementation of policies and programmes. The idea of $5 trillion economy is not just numbers which need to be boasted but it’s the impact on billion more people.

Nevertheless, why the vision for only the overall size of the economy? Why not also have bold visions on sectoral aspects of the country? Can’t we have some constructive vision documents with goals to be achieved by 2025 by revisiting the Niti Aayog’s Strategy? The following aspects will play a major role to define what we mean by New India either positively or negatively depends upon the kind of policies that the Modi government envisions and implement it in the next five years to 2025:

 (1) How to increase the one million employment opportunities every year for youth? At present, 10 million Indian youth enter the workforce every year.

(2) How do we ensure the unrestrained flow of credit access to millions of micro, small and medium enterprises in the country? Though Government is saying that they have mission-mode project of creating 5 crore jobs in next 5 years in the MSME sector.

(3) How to achieve the learning outcomes of children in primary schools by adopting psychological methods of teaching tools?

(4) How to reduce different kinds of violence against children and women; the demographic dividend will be defined better how the government policies and programmes are dealt with children and women?

(5) How do we minimize the millions of court cases pending (32 millions) for decades especially the heinous criminal cases against children, women and elderly people?

(6) How do we handle the challenges of municipal solid waste which has been projected to be 150 million tonnes by 2030 three times of present 55 million tonnes?

(7) How to recycle the municipal sewage and industrial effluents of millions of liters (40,000 million) which has been let out into the rivers, streams, channels, lakes, ponds, bore wells, etc. across the country causing health hazardous for millions of people, animals, birds, etc?

 (8) How are we going to manage the growing urban population of 590 million by 2030 from the present 340 million without adequate civic developments?

(9) How to handle the electronic waste generation of 20 lakh tonnes (2017) which has increased from 1.47 tonnes in 2005. India is the 5^th largest e-waste generated and has recycled only 0.036 MT per annum in 2017.

(10) How to rehabilitate and provide sustainable likelihoods to nearly half a million destitute, shelters less and beggars people in the country? Do they don't have an aspiration for New India?

The idea of new India is worth if only the governments make sincere efforts to try and understand the urgency of the above issues and challenges besides others to help 1.3 billion people to achieve their aspirations bestowed on the governments. It’s high time to think about how ease is dealing with each of the above issues in terms of responses from the government departments for improving the lives of the people.

Once in five years, the people's faith in political leadership is not for the rhetorical wisdom of having a vision for a $5 trillion economy by 2025 but also how to unfold that vision into sub-sets of objectives and goals to achieve the aspirations of billion more people. Unfortunately, the present governments are not showing interest in having a constructive vision for the subsets of the $5 trillion economy by 2025 for inclusive New India.