Chairperson of the National Committee on Financial Inclusion and Literacy at Niti Aayog Bindu Dalmia on Tuesday said that under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is well on path to become a $5 trillion economy.
Highlighting inherent strengths of Indian economy and dispelling any concern of slowdown, she said that tough times don't last but tough nations do. She was speaking at an event organised by Merchant's Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Kolkata.
Dispelling concern of slowdown, she said, "There is no reason for irrational pessimism. Going forward, there is every reason for future optimism, as economic green shoots are beginning to appear, as gauged through various economic indicators like higher employee provident fund registrations, uptick in retail lending, rise in MUDRA loans, rise in bookings in residential real estate, higher FDI inflows of $24 billion, higher FPI flows, rising forex reserves, and buoyant stock markets."
As the centre of economic gravity is shifting to cities, by 2030, 600 million Indians are estimated to migrate to cities, requiring provisioning for 100 Smart Cities and 500 new townships to absorb the influx of rural migrants. Planned urbanisation holds the largest potential to make quantum economic leaps. Rapid urbanisation was a key feature of economies like Korea that sustained 10% growth. In comparison, India has only urbanised at just 3.4% per decade.
The biggest engine of growth will be the sunrise sector of digitisation, which works on integrating the entire agro, services and retail supply chain through convergence on the e-commerce platforms.
Elaborating path to a $5 trillion economy, she talked about additional force multipliers which will come from broadly 11 sectors having high multiplier coefficients in generating employment which include housing, healthcare and tourism.