Page 137 - Abhivruddhi

tax which might stymie private investment, higher import tariffs and
subsidies to the tune of US$27 billion towards ‘Make in India’. It criticises
the budget as protectionist and heavily supply side oriented. Time will till
tell if these fears were justified.
The New York Times article is from December 2021 and critical of
the Indian government’s efforts towards economic recovery and doubts
economic statistics released by the Indian government.
The Economist too criticises the Indian government’s efforts to
address the pandemic. If India’s post-Covid troubles are due to anything”,
the article states, “it is to a legacy of poor choices by its leaders, from a
chronic failure to invest in human capital to shying away from a fuller
transition to a truly competitive economy”. It also warns of a surge in
Covid cases. The article was written in July 2021.

Discussion:
Manufacturing (especially electronics and engineering goods), IT,
Infrastructure and BFSI sector followed by Pharmaceuticals, Healthcare,
Automotive and Textiles sectors have been endorsed as the key sectors
for economic growth. PLI (Productivity-Linked Incentives) scheme has
received approval as it will give a boost to manufacturing activity. Further,
disinvestment initiatives of the Indian government are welcomed. As we
see the LIC IPO received a stupendous response. Gati Shakti, the national
master plan for multi-modal connectivity met with cautious approval but
concerns were raised that the underlying physical infrastructure should
not become a bottleneck. The tourism sector has huge potential to rival
even the IT sector by 2030. It was 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.
China can be a model for infrastructure development and Israel for
technology and innovation, especially getting maximum output from
scarce resources in agriculture. Singapore can serve as a model for
developing the financial and services sector with special reference to
tourism.
It was felt that information technology, particularly internet, cloud,
tools, platforms, and apps are at best enablers. However, information
technology has the potential to make economic growth more inclusive.
Moreover, IT has the potential to facilitate ease of doing business, which
has been India’s Achilles heel.

137