Innovation will be an enabler for India to move up the value chain: Sanjiv Mehta

FICCI McKinsey has released a whitepaper proposing a roadmap for India to achieve 600 million jobs and 10 lakh per capita income by 2047. The whitepaper also aims to double female participation in the labour force, cut carbon emissions and provide clean water for all.

In an interview with CNBC-TV18, the outgoing president of FICCI Sanjiv Mehta said innovation will be an enabler for India to move up the value chain.

“If you look at the last three decades, India has delivered a growth of 6.5 percent and now we have crossed the $3 trillion mark. So if we were to deliver 7.7 percent growth, which is not something out of the realm of what India can deliver, then the objectives of lifting everyone out of poverty, increasing the per capita income by 6x to a million etc, can be delivered. Then we thought there should be certain enablers to make this happen. So one of the enablers is innovation. India as a nation, needs to move up the value chain and to do that we will have to be competitive on costs, service quality and very importantly innovation. So we believe India should be taking a lead in setting up innovation clusters where public sector R&D, private sector R&D, startups and academia come together,” Mehta said.