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Indian economy is about 2.75 trillion dollar in present and what was promised is 5 trillion dollar economy in next 5 years which is almost ‘double’ of what we are having today. It might have sound motivated that time but, how it is relevant to live in the imaginary world for so long and for that to wait for it to happen one fine day by its own, as the bitter reality has occur (Covid-19) and that cannot be ignored as that of the reality of 22% Poverty. There are several ignored preceding realities such as Massive Unemployment, Poor Infrastructure, No ground Implementation of Schemes and Policies, etc. and with all of these we would have still imagined to reach near the goal of around 5 trillion dollar economy with some proper implementation of plans and strategies but, now it wholly sounds like Jumla (unrealistic) after the unwanted virus named Covid-19 came to India.
Ignoring the recent lockdown even if we go back and look at the earlier situation, what is unfortunate is that there has not been a slight effort to take it beyond from just a slogan. It is not novel to have such politicians trying to stir up people around the slogans and hoardings. However, when it comes to the targets belonging to economy, it is very much required to have the politicians and advertisers to go beyond the headline, for disbursing the details and the road map for the targets. The Rajya Sabha member P. Chidambram showed the clear calculations where he focused to forget about the granular indicators, such as annual growth, inflation rate, employment rate, and other things so that the actual policy can be drafted. “He made the calculations like this: back in 2018-2019, India’s GDP was $ 2.75 trillion, and India’s present growth rate happens to be 4.5%. He further utters that we all hope that this disappointing performance will be short-lived but for the realistic calculations, let us test how many years it would take our economy to reach to the target mentioned by such growth rate. Undoubtedly, the GDP will rise to $2.87 trillion in 2019-2020, which is $2.75 trillion in addition to 4.5% of 2.75. Moving ahead with the same arithmetic calculation, the goal can be achieved in 2032-33, not in 2025. In order to achieve the stated goal by 2025, the economy should grow at the rate of 10.5% for the 5 consecutive years then this miracle can happen but again if we look to the data, China’s economy is the only one which had grown at 10.5% growth rate for six consecutive years i.e. from 2003-2009.”
China with the population of 150 crores and $12 trillion ranks 2nd in the world’s economy list after America being the 1st largest with the amount of $19 trillion. India with 2.75 trillion ranks 4th in the list by being the second most populated country with 135 crores of people after Japan with $5 trillion. Now even we see similarities in both the economy (India and China) but the number in dollar trillion pinch us Right? Definitely it should. It’s not since ever the china had best economy, this height is being reached in only 5 consecutive years. This miracle happened with the growing techniques such as worldwide trade, outbound investment, and foreign exchange reserves and bulk production. China being the most densely populated country has cheap labour force and such labour force is used in bulk productivity of materials. They produce the products that ranges from teeny toy-battery to giant production machines which they export them worldwide at a low costs, attractive appearance.
India also have the cheap labour force but lacks in proper planning, strategy formulation and implementation of policies at ground level where it is most needed.
The pandemic covid-19 is an unprecedented catastrophe which is likely to pave the way for significant dislocations for businesses and consumers which has put the whole world in difficult situation. If we predict that if the post-covid19 recovery will be ‘V’ shaped i.e. speedy recovery after a severe downfall or the ‘U’ shaped i.e. protracted recession before recovery. If the virus once after disappearing does not reappears, the bottled-up demand of the investment and consumption may support in a fast recovery. However, many economists still doubt that even after the lockdowns are over, all the monetary activities will not be at place unless there is vaccine of covid-19 available worldwide which is unpredictable as by when this vaccine maybe generated.
It’s not that after the Covid-19 the Indian economy is facing reduced GDP growth which is expected to reduce to 2% or lower in this pandemic stage, but India’s GDP was not even growing before this pandemic, it was going through the near 4% annual growth rate and as for the dream of $5 trillion India needs at least 10.5% of annual growth rate which seems to be impossible now as India has not seen double numbered GDP growth since ages and we cannot expect it to go double numbered in this financial and health crisis.
India pretty much relates to the tortoise story in the fable, the potential was never in question, what tortoise needed is time and what India requires to reach 5 trillion-dollar economy is also a time. To have acche din (good days) and prosperity among the billion Indians, the increase in the rate of growth of GDP should be focused on. After this lock down it would be the best time for India to raise the demands and implement the long term policies which India was waiting since long for an opportunity to increase its GDP, the infrastructure building should also be increased as it will give the employment to the workers who are at large unemployment stage right now. India, now need to follow more focused approach in terms of making and implementation of policies if the 5 trillion economy has to be achieved.
“A $5 trillion economy is like a dream to come true for a hippo to enjoy outside his mud puddle”.
-Priyanka Singh
LLM( National Law University, Odisha)
Reference
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o-skate-on-thin-ice/302551
