Highlighting the Narendra Modi Government’s big push on reforms on several fronts, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has voiced confidence of India’s potential to grow at 9 to 10 per cent in the coming years.
“India has the potential to make 9 to 10 per cent its new normal in the years to come,” Jaitley said in a keynote address to a US-India conference on deepening bilateral commercial partnership at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies here on Wednesday.
He sought to enthuse the foreign investors by pointing out that most sectors of the Indian economy have been opened up under the new government’s road map, be it insurance, defence, railway infrastructure or real estate. Jaitley, who is here for the upcoming IMF-World Bank spring meetings, said a growth rate of 5, 6 or even 7 per cent is just not good enough for a country of India’s size and population, so it will have to target a double-digit growth anyway.
A growth push of this dimension is the new imperative, given that India is on the brink of a major demographic shift, with the proportion of working-age population between 15 and 59 years set to increase to more than 64 percent by 2021.
His comments came even as the IMF’s World Economic Outlook has projected that the Indian economy will outpace China for the first time since 1999 this year, predicting India will clock a 7.5 per cent rate growth this year, albeit lower than the 8.1-8.5 per cent projected by the Central Statistics Office based on its new methodology.
As part of the moves towards ease of doing business in India, Jaitley said the Government is trying to narrow down the period for commissioning projects. “I have set up a new committee to look up into the whole mechanism of how, whole institution of prior permission can be replaced by regulatory mechanism where it is far easier to start your business just complying with the guidelines that have been stated in that area,” he said.
He, however, conceded that the land Reforms Bill remains a contentious issue in India today. Clearing the decks for land acquisition is vital for the creation of industrial corridors for accelerated investment activity creating jobs for the rural poor.