Page 131 - Abhivruddhi

there are infrastructure gaps that other ministries need to address. ()

Tourism anyone?
Respondents were unanimous in their judgment that the tourism
sector has huge potential of which not even 5% is utilised. Some believed
that it has the potential to rival the IT sector by 2030! Religious, temple,
heritage, nature, and wildlife tourism have huge untapped potential which
if developed can boost employment and infrastructure development in
rural economies. By setting up hospitals in areas with tourism potential
one can achieve twin objectives of addressing healthcare needs of rural
populations as well as income through medical tourism. There are also
possibilities in alternative medicine tourism through ayurveda, yoga and
such like. Respondents believed that presently, tourism performance will
be sub-optimal due to the pandemic.

What’s in it for the common man?
When respondents were quizzed about whether the masses will buy
into the ambition to make India a five trillion-dollar economy, there was a
range of diverse and often opposing perspectives. Most agreed that masses
may not understand the five-trillion dream, but they would understand
employment and better standard of living.
Some believed that government spending in sectors such as
Infrastructure, Healthcare, Tourism and Hospitality which are labour
intensive would help boost employment and facilitate buy-in to this
dream of India as five-trillion-dollar economy.
Others believed that government must stop entry of technology
such as AI and robots, that has the potential to replace low skilled jobs.
Experience however suggests that such fears may be unfounded as more
low skilled jobs too get created as the economy grows.

Benchmarking with other economies
When quizzed about whether we can learn from growth journeys of
other economies such as China and Israel, most respondents believed
that we must not blindly adopt but adapt models to suit our unique
context. Emphasis was on learning from mistakes made by others. As
one respondent noted, “China went about building cities without looking
at the demand for housing and now they are ghost cities”. Most agreed
that China can be a model for infrastructure development and Israel for
technology and innovation, especially getting maximum output from

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