The next phase of India’s story has to be from states carrying out radical reforms, India's G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant said at an event at the Confederation of Indian Industry on March 21.
Kant noted that the challenge with India is that 42% of the population is employed in the agriculture sector, which contributes 18% to the nation's total Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
"We need to take people away from agriculture and into other fields," he said, adding that there is a need to create more smart cities, led by manufacturing that will create good quality jobs.
Emphasising the many trends shaping the country, Kant said fertility rates have declined, and the population will not grow at the same level. "More people using the Internet in rural areas; will see close to 400 million Indians getting into the process of urbanisation over the next decade."
He, however, noted that the urbanisation has to be done sustainably.
According to the former NITI Aayog CEO, manufacturing will give India the size and scale to penetrate the global trade market.
"India needs to grow its share to 5% of global trade and for that, we need to grow manufacturing which is what we are doing via PLI." He asserted that it is not possible for India to become a $35 trillion economy without a huge focus on education, health and nutrition.
On the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises, Kant said, "We need 1,000s more Adanis and Ambanis for our SMEs to grow." He emphasised that the government has done a lot in terms of credit and tech for SMEs. "Large companies now link themselves with smaller companies."
Kant believes that artificial intelligence will boost India's GDP by a trillion dollars. "Indian companies are lagging in AI adoption and maturity. No country has the power of data that India has; AI should become very critical to our growth," he said.
This is India’s decade and century, he remarked.
