“India really needs to grow at a high rate of 9-10% over a three-decade period, year after year, to be able to able to lift a very young population above the poverty line.”
— Amitabh Kant, Niti Aayog CEO
Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant while reiterating the role of digitization and real-time data, said the country needs to grow at high GDP rates for a sustainable period of time. “India really needs to grow at a high rate of 9-10% over a three-decade period, year after year, to be able to able to lift a very young population above the poverty line,” he said.
The Niti Aayog CEO said this at the Indian Institute of Management – Ahmedabad (IIM-A) campus on November 11 while delivering the inaugural lecture for the series on ‘Public Policy Priorities for the Social Sector – Leaving No One Behind in New India.’ The lecture is part of the Public Talk Series titled ‘India 2031: The Decade of Transformation’ organised by JSW School of Public IIM-A.
Talking about the path that India must take to achieve public policy priorities that can result in holistic and inclusive growth, Kant talked about the role that digitization can play in building India as a future superpower.
He added that massive benefits can be achieved from tracking real time data and publishing it in the public domain to create transparency. Citing the example of the government’s ‘aspirational district programme’ where 115 of the country’s most backward districts were chosen for monitoring, Kant said that ranking them improved their performance to a great extent.
Kant said that five key areas such as improving outcomes in education, health, and nutrition; promoting sunrise sectors of growth such as AI and data science, scientific urbanization, technological advancement and shifting to sustainable sources of energy such as green hydrogen can contribute significantly to India’s growth in the years to come
“These districts were poor and backwards not because of lack or resources or lack of funds, but because of governance failure. The government started ranking them not on a monthly basis but on real-time, minute to minute basis. We started putting the data out in the public domain. We started naming and shaming collectors (of districts that fared poorly) and started rewarding the better performing collectors,” said Kant.
As a result, many of these districts are today faring better than the best performing districts of the country on many parameters, he said. “I am a great believer in good data, real-time data,” said Kant. India is passing through a window of demographic transition that rarely happens through history and therefore this growth was critical. India has grown at this growth rate for a short period of 5-6 years, but we need to sustain this over a few-decade period.
Kant said that five key areas such as improving outcomes in education, health, and nutrition; promoting sunrise sectors of growth such as AI and data science, scientific urbanization, technological advancement and shifting to sustainable sources of energy such as green hydrogen can contribute significantly to India’s growth in the years to come.
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