‘India needs bolder economic reforms’

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday underlined the need to rapidly transform India, calling for a change in archaic laws, eliminating unnecessary procedures and speeding up processes to go beyond “mere incremental progress.” The urgency in his remarks assumed all the more significance as Singapore deputy prime minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said that India has a huge “unfulfilled potential,” and for realising it, bold economic reforms are required.

Mr Shanmugaratnam, who delivered the first lecture at Niti Aayog on the theme of “Transforming India,” said, “India has to move with urgency to achieve its potential. 8-10 per cent growth rate is not a luxury, it will merely get India about 70 per cent of per capita income of China in 20 years’ time.”

The Singapore deputy prime minister said, “India has two-and-a-half time lower per capita income than China. India can achieve this. India has the largest unfulfilled potential of any country I know in the world and it needs urgency to achieve that. Reforms are underway. India leads the world in some areas like the world’s first digital identification infrastructure in Aadhaar (sic.).”

Mr Shanmugaratnam further noted that India is uniquely positioned to recast the global narrative, to achieve broad-based prosperity through deeper strategic interaction with the global economy. He said that India requires bolder economic reforms to fulfil this target.

He also expressed grave concern on high dropout rate in upper primary schools of India, adding that schools are facing the “biggest crisis” in India.

Reeling off data, Mr Shanmugaratnam said 43 per cent students drop out before finishing upper primary school. There is a shortage of 7,00,000 primary school teachers, only 53 per cent schools have girl’s toilets and only 74 per cent have access to daily drinking water.

He went on to say this explains that when India took part in OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study in 2009, it was ranked 73rd out of 74 countries.

“And this is in a country which has exceptional talent with people who go to IITs and IIMs and lead companies all over the world and are first-rated,” he added.

Along with Mr Modi, the entire Union Cabinet was in full attendance during the lecture. Earlier in his opening remarks prior to Mr Shanmugaratnam’s lecture, Mr Modi said, “If India is to meet the challenge of change, mere incremental progress is not enough. A metamorphosis is needed. That is why my vision for India is rapid transformation, not gradual evolution”.

Stressing on the need to bring changes through transformation of governance, Modi said it cannot happen with an administrative system of the 19th century.

“A transformation of governance cannot happen without a transformation in mindset and a transformation in mindset cannot happen without transformative ideas. We have to change laws, eliminate unnecessary procedures, speed up processes and adopt technology. We cannot march through the 21st century with the administrative systems of the 19th century,” Mr Modi said.

The Prime Minister added that the change has to be for both external and internal reasons. Each country, he said, has its own experiences, resources and strengths.

“Thirty years ago, a country might have been able to look inward and find its own solutions. Today, countries are inter-dependent and inter-connected. No country can afford any longer to develop in isolation. Every country has to benchmark its activities to global standards, or else fall behind,” he said. The Prime Minister further said that fundamental changes in administrative mindsets usually occur through sudden shocks or crisis.

With a stable democratic polity in India, special efforts will have to be made to force transformative changes, he added.