Business Advisor, Vol.X, Part 1, 10th April 2015 carried this article of mine.
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February 2015, towards the
close was crowded with the vision-led railway budget, the release of Economic
Survey and the Union Budget. The next twenty days in Parliament did not have so
much to discuss on the approach to the budget as on amendments to the land
bill, the rape incident of West Bengal and some unholy acts in Haryana. The
most significant budget discussion related to the allocations to AP and
Telangana states and the devolutions under the 14th Finance
commission. The strategic intent and the road map for growth laid out in the FM
Budget speech, would seem to have got full endorsement.
Growth by itself even if in
double digit, would be inconsequential if it escapes the human development. The
300mn poor are not so much worried about how the dollar is moving against the
rupee or how the rupee is globally pared although its consequences will have
definitive impact on them. In an event crowded out during the last few days of
February 15 was the release of a book: ‘India’s Growth Resurgence.’
In spite of the change in
the base year from 2005 to 2012, the CSO credibility of the growth figure is
still in question in the context of lowest/negative manufacturing growth and
not too impressive growth of services sector. The statistical jumble did not in
any case put the human development in a better frame than what was on hold till
2014 with 134th rank out of 183 nations surveyed by the UN.
The near two and half
decades of reform process were literally in waves with turfs and peaks between
1991. Never ever in the past has the Indian economy been so keenly watched by
global community with hope, expectation and anticipation. The sheer size of the
economy and the potential it holds has global investors, multi-national
corporations, and players in different sectors, queuing to take part in the
country’s economic progress and the growth agenda, what with, Make-in-India,
Swatch Bharat and Jan Dhan, the new instrument of inclusive growth.