While there are many indications that our country is on a strong upward growth path, there are an equal number of negatives—poverty, malnourishment, growing population, inadequate job opportunities, poor infrastructure, corruption—that hold it back. We need to think out of the box to find effective solutions...
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) stated a few days ago that the Indian economy is like an elephant which is on the verge of running. The IMF also visualizes that it will have a smooth running for at least 30 years till the Indian workforce remains young. The only condition is that in future the present parameters of the economy should not go into reverse gear. The IMF is not alone in cheering the upswing of the Indian economy as many international rating agencies also hold a similar view. The World Bank as per data at the end of 2017 has placed India at the sixth position displacing France with a GDP of $ 2.60 trillion. It has been foreseen that in a very short time, India will reach the fifth position displacing Britain. Forbes has made a calculated guess based on the pace at which the Indian economy is rising that it may reach the fourth position by the end of 2022. The Indian GDP growth at the moment is the highest amongst the major economies in the world. It was 7.7 % in the last quarter of fiscal 2017-18. The short term disturbances due to demonetization and the punch from GST are now things of the past. The IMF has lauded the rollout of economic reforms, particularly GST. The industrial growth output data for the month of June 2018 at 7 % is much to our satisfaction.
Things on the economic front are good, but we have a long way to go. We have become the sixth largest economy, but our per capita income is still very low, at 130th in the world. We are also very low in human development index. We still have the largest number of poor people. We have malnourished children. We are not doing very well in the health and education sector. Our infrastructure is so poor that with monsoon rains our cities like Delhi and Mumbai get flooded. Our people keep on dying in several states due to flooding caused by rains.
There is a rising demand for jobs which are not growing to the expectation of the youth. There are strikes for more reservations in government jobs which at many times turn ugly when agitators burn public property. So we have both good and bad sides in our economy. Our good side will not shine until we take curative steps for our bad side.
The single biggest cause of our problems is our ever increasing population. The population at the time of independence and partition was 33 crores, but now it is roughly 134 crores. We have added more than 100 crores to our population in the last 70 years. It is expected that by the year 2024, we will become the most populated country in the world overtaking China. Geographically, in size, China is more than three times bigger than us. India comes at the seventh position as per the size of countries in the world. While the population of our country is increasing at a very rapid pace, our geographical area remains the same. There is a mismatch between the size of our country and the size of our population. The demographic advantage of having a young work force is becoming a disaster as there are no proportionally matching employment opportunities. Our economy is still mainly agricultural as 70% of our population depends upon farming though its contribution to the GDP has come down to about 15%. With rising population, farmland is getting splintered and the yield is getting reduced and this has led to many farmer suicides.
We have limited resources, as only about 4% of our population pays income tax and about only one crore entities are registered under GST. Many of the entities have registered to claim refund. The total income from taxation is about Rs.17 lakh crores. Even the basic needs of infrastructure are not met by this. The flooding during rainy seasons is caused by illegal constructions and by the lack of planned drainage system and proper roads. Our industrialists think twice before investing in the country due to poor connectivity and bad infrastructure and this causes more job shortages.
We have to evolve a population policy at the earliest. China did this in 1979 when it announced the one-child policy. The law made by China was stringent, as defaulters had to pay a heavy fine. The bad effect of this policy was that there were large scale abortions in China but the good thing was that the rising population was controlled. The country has now liberalized this policy in 2015 as now a couple can have two children and it may go up to three children shortly.
We also have to go for some tough legislation if we desire to solve this pressing problem of population explosion. In a democratic country like India we cannot force our people to have fewer children. The fact remains that something out of the box has to be thought of, as merely educating our people through advertisements to have smaller families has failed to give the desired results. Educated people are having smaller families, but in rural India and among the uneducated, this has not worked. Ideas like curtailing voting rights or subsidies of those who do not restrict their families to less than two children are being thought of. But there may be legal issues. Some say that government jobs should be restricted to members having small families. Drastic steps have to be taken as it is the need of the hour. The sooner the better, in the interest of the future generation.
"We have to transform our youth into job creators from job seekers. We need to have more start-ups. We need to have more entrepreneurs both big and small. The government should devise ways to become competent facilitators"
Many feel that the best investment for better returns is in education. Today, developed countries are those that realized this in advance and opened big universities of high standards. Research, innovation and technologies proved to be the success mantras for developed countries. We are far away from this situation and we have to make up for the loss of time. We have to allocate a big proportion of our existing resources for education. Our people have to be fully educated so that they prove to be helping hands for nation building rather than being begging hands. Educated citizens understand their duties while asking for rights.
Emphasis on research and new technology in higher education will boost our economy in many ways. Today, we are the world’s biggest importer of arms as we do not have the necessary technology to produce modern armaments ourselves. We are not good enough in the export sector and this can be changed if we produce cost-effective sophisticated items and this can happen only with innovation and new technology.
Employment opportunities are limited today, and with modern technology and automation, it is feared that jobs will further get reduced. With the rising population, more hands need to be given jobs. This is the real challenge. We have to transform our youth into job creators from job seekers. We need to have more start-ups. We need to have more entrepreneurs both big and small. The government should devise ways to become competent facilitators. The government should also work on the service sector and see that our youth are welcomed all over the world. We have succeeded to a great extent in the software field and now we also have to evolve other service sectors. The mentality of our youth needs to be changed to put an end to the hankering for government jobs. There is a limit to government jobs and our youth should widen their horizons. They should be ambitious and innovative. There is always going to be a crowd at the bottom of the pyramid when there is lot of space at the top. Our youth should be helped by the government to show them the way to reach the top of the pyramid. There will not be just one pyramid but many pyramids to climb.
Our economic system and our national health are contaminated by one very dangerous infection diagnosed as ‘corruption’. We have limited resources for a large country, but even the same does not reach the target as our delivery system is corrupt. As per our late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, only 20% of money allocated reaches it’s destination, while 80% is eaten away by the corrupt system from the top to the bottom. For the majority of us, corruption is in our DNA. We cannot look beyond this. We have created scams and have people like Nirav Modi and Vijay Mallya. There is some improvement in fighting this deadly infection today, but the fact remains that our system is really sick and we all will have to stand together to eliminate this altogether. After all, the tax that we pay to the government is our hard earned money! Last but not the least, we all have to think about our country and our economy. We must aspire to contribute from wherever we are. If the country grows, we grow. If the national economy gets stronger, then more jobs are created for our youth. Let us introspect, and think for the country.
by S K Jha
