Former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan, shared insights on India's economic progress and challenges during a podcast titled 'Raghuram Rajan’s Economic Roadmap & Warning for India' on Youtuber Akash Banerjee's Deshbhakt channel. Rajan highlighted the economic activities in cities such as Gurgaon and Noida, stating that residents there function within a framework akin to a first-world economy. "Parts of the Indian economy are first world. People in Noida or Gurgaon are essentially operating in a first-world economy," he said.
Praise for UPI
Praising the impact of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), Rajan, who previously served as the government's Chief Economic Advisor (2012-2013), credited its inception during his tenure at the RBI. He acknowledged its substantial growth.
"UPI. Great success. Success has many fathers. I want to claim a little bit of parenthood. It started during my time at the RBI, now we are at 10 billion transactions a month," Rajan said.
Growth Projections and Challenges
Expressing doubts about India's journey to a developed economy by 2047, Rajan suggested that the current growth rate might hinder this progress.
With India's per capita income at approximately $2,500, he projected a possible rise to a $10,000 per capita economy by 2047. However, he cautioned that this would still trail China by $3,000 and might lead India to a lower or moderate middle-income status instead of a developed one.
"Our current per capita is around $2,500. India cannot become a developed country by 2047 at the current growth rate. We can, at best. reach lower middle income to moderate middle income. Considering our growth, India will become a $10,000 per capita economy by 2047, which is still $3,000 behind China," Rajan said. He also noted that to meet its goals, India would have to "skip the processes" that other countries have used.
This came after Union Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said that India's ambition is to achieve a $5 trillion economy and transform it into an advanced economy by 2047. Chaudhary said he envisions this milestone aligning with 'Amrit Kaal' and emphasised that India's GDP had reached $3.7 trillion by the fiscal year 2022-23.
Insights on Demonetisation and Malnutrition
Addressing demonetisation, Rajan revealed that they were asked to examine its feasibility. He said the prime minister's office had asked the RBI to "examine whether demonetisation would work or not", and Rajan's team had sent back a note with the positives and negatives. but concluded the move should be avoided.
Further, on malnutrition, Rajan emphasised the need to confront the problem "openly" and strive to eradicate it within the next five years.
“I think we have recognised as a country that we are doing poorly on malnutrition but it is hidden under the carpet as something shameful. We should breathe out at something shameful and tackle it at a mission-mode level and say ‘measure us, every year we are gonna bring it down until it comes to 0 in the next 5 years'. It is a fixable problem," he said.
Highlighting the disparity in malnutrition levels across regions, Rajan urged for learning from the best-performing areas, citing Kerala's 6 percent rate as an example, while some areas in Bihar and Jharkhand suffer at rates worse than 35 percent. He stressed the potential to reduce malnutrition levels to OECD standards through concerted efforts.
No comments:
Post a Comment