New Delhi, Releasing a strategy document for New India 2022 as envisioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday said Indian growth model must be laced with social consciousness.
While the Niti Aayog document sets a comprehensive agenda for India to become a $5 trillion economy by 2030, Jaitley said the country has squandered many opportunities in the past, but the economic model post 1991 has paid large dividends to the country.
“The course that we have adopted is now gradually perfecting itself as the Indian model in which you grow faster and you utilise the resource of the state in order to pull millions of people out of poverty, give them a better quality of life,” the Minister said.
Jaitley said the economic model that the country started moving towards post 1991 “certainly has paid very large dividends to India”.
“But, then, how do we tackle the problem of poverty, how do we still get millions who live in unacceptable conditions out of that? Therefore our entire emphasis on market reforms and entrepreneurship has to be accompanied by some social consciousness,” he said.
Jaitley said experience shows that a society that does not grow will never have adequate resources to service the poor and get millions out of poverty.
“We have evolved this model where you allow India to grow, you allow entrepreneurship, private sector to play a very important role and you utilise increased resources of the state towards better infrastructure, townships, healthcare facilities, educational opportunities and you put a large part of it as a resource in order to service the poor,” he said.
Niti Aayog’s document ‘Strategy for New India @ 75’, which seeks to make development a Jan Andolan (people’s movement) by defining clear objectives for 2022-23, has come out with key recommendations across growth drivers, infrastructure, inclusion and governance.
In his foreword, Prime Minister Modi said the document tries to bring innovation, technology, enterprise and efficient management at the core of policy formulation and implementation. Inviting feedback, he said economic transformation cannot happen without public participation and thus development must become a Jan Andolan.
“The overarching focus of the Strategy document is to further improve the policy environment in which private investors and other stakeholders can contribute their fullest towards achieving the goals set out for New India 2022 and propel India towards a USD 5 trillion economy by 2030,” the document said.
Jaitley said the document would be extremely fruitful not only for the Centre but also for state governments and others to have a serious look at it as every brick whether by the state, local body, central government or private businesses would add the entire energy of the system to make the country great.
“Historically we have squandered several opportunities. Fortunately, we are at a cusp of making history where in the last at least few decades India has started making the full utilisation of those opportunities and that seems to be the course to go ahead,” he said.
