Persistent reforms must for Viksit Bharat

Achieving the vision of Viksit Bharat requires a sustained annual growth rate of 8.5% for the next 22 years, with the initial years demanding a staggering 9%-plus rate, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, a key architect of India’s reforms in the 1990s, tells Surabhi in this 33rd Anniversary Issue of Business Today.

Given the current domestic and global economic landscape, how can that come about? The answers are spread across the pages of this issue with top experts and BT reporters weighing in on India’s path to prosperity. As Sajjid Chinoy writes in his essay, India’s playbook to sustain high growth requires several moves, including warding off a trade war with the US and not overly relying on fiscal and monetary policy to boost growth.

While many experts call for greater private sector investment to drive growth, Arun Maira writes that contrary to Ronald Reagan’s dictum that “government is the problem, not the solution”, India’s development demands greater government intervention in sectors like health, education, water, sanitation, electricity, public transport, and financial services.

Focussing on one of the biggest issues for long-term growth—the state of agriculture across India, Siraj Hussain writes that the onus of reforms here is not on the Centre alone. Citing the repealed farm laws, he makes a point that it is the state governments that are dithering on agriculture market reform.

If the economy requires deft handling, Indian companies also need to constantly tweak their playbook. As Krishna Gopalan writes, businesses must adapt to disruption through innovation rather than just financial strength. Traditional conglomerates are facing challenges from nimble, sector-focused firms as access to capital and technology improves.

And even as large conglomerates navigate change, our growth impulses would benefit from unleashing the true potential of small businesses. As Surabhi explains, the struggles of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises are all too real. Will the proposed deregulation commission end the inspector-raj forever?

That it is technology that will drive the future is beyond debate. As Mohanbir Sawhney writes, digital Bharat will be built on a recombination of the building blocks of Aadhaar, the unified payments interface, the Open Network for Digital Commerce and artificial intelligence (AI).

Jaspreet Bindra writes that the question is what India should do to leverage AI. His answer: ‘Jan AI’—delivering AI for 1.4 billion Indians by building own large language models and apps as part of the India Stack and treating it as a free and widely accessible digital public good.

For India to realise the vision of Viksit Bharat, bold reforms across multiple sectors will be essential. Given the size of its population and the number of its youth, urgent change is essential to meet our ambitious goal of becoming a developed nation by 2047.