Blueprint to elevate India to a ‘developed economy’ in Dec: NITI Aayog CEO

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The government has set its target to earn the developed country status by the centenary year of India’s independence and the principal government-backed think tank of the country, NITI Aayog, is preparing Vision 2047, the blueprint that would lay out the institutional and structural reforms necessary to reach that goal, one of the quantifiable targets of which is a GDP size of $30 trillion.

Come December and NITI Aayog will be ready with the grand document that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would unveil it, CEO of the think tank B V R Subrahmanyam said on October 29.

“The whole purpose of the vision document is to avoid the middle-income trap… We are worried about the middle-income trap… India has to cut through,” Subrahmanyam told the media. The World Bank defines a “middle-income trap” as a situation “whereby a middle-income country is failing to transition to a high-income economy due to rising costs and declining competitiveness.” Incidentally, many Latin American and West Asian regions remain stuck in a middle-income trap. Various World Bank literature also suggests that several East Asian countries are also caught in a similar situation. The NITI Aayog has already held discussions with 10 secretary-level groups. It is expected to make final presentation to these groups in the first week of November. In the third week of the same month, it is scheduled to meet leaders in industry and academia to finalise its document. The 10 groups that are active in the preparation of the blueprint touch almost all domains of the economy. These are rural-agriculture, infrastructure, resources, social vision, welfare, finance and economy, commerce and industry, technology, governance and security and foreign affairs. Among the corporate captains who are being consulted to take the country to the “developed economy” status are Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani, Reliance Group chairman Mukesh Ambani, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani and Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi. Defining the basic assumptions to prepare the blueprint, Subrahmanyam said the country’s population is projected to reach 150 crore by 2047 and annual per capita income is expected to reach $18,000-20,000. “For India to be a developed nation, we need to recast the whole government in a way that decisions are taken at the lower level while upper level is responsible to strategise for a better future with targeted intervention,” said the NITI Aayog CEO. He also told the media, the broad guidelines for preparing the vision document and the structural changes needed was laid down by the Prime Minister.