Former RBI Governor and Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at Chicago Booth, Raghuram Rajan, said that while the Indian economy is largely playing catch-up, many parts of the economy are operating at “first-world” levels, but many are worse even than third-world.
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“Parts of the Indian economy are first world,” said Raghuram Rajan, adding, “People in Noida or Gurgaon are essentially operating in a first-world economy.” He said that parts of India are worse than third-world or sub-Saharan Africa.
Speaking at YouTuber Akash Banerjee’s ‘The Deshbhakt’ channel podcast, Rajan further said the question of the hour is how to bring everyone on the same level because that is the need for 2047.
This comes after Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said that India is poised to become a $5 trillion economy in the near future, with its evolution into an advanced economy by 2047. Chaudhary said that India will achieve the $5 trillion economy mark during the ‘Amrit Kaal’ aligning with the country’s aspirations to become an advanced economy by 2047. According to the government, India’s GDP reached $3.7 trillion at the end of the fiscal year 2022-23.
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Rajan said, considering our growth, India will become a $10,000 per capita economy by 2047, which is still $3,000 behind China. Our current per capita is around $2,500. He said India cannot become a developed country by 2047 at the current growth rate. “We can, at best, reach lower middle income to moderate middle income,” said Rajan, adding that India will have to skip the process other countries used.
Talking about malnutrition Rajan said, “I think we have recognised as a country that we are doing poorly on malnutrition but it is hidden under the carpet as something shameful. We should breathe out at something shameful and tackle it at a mission-mode level and say ‘measure us, every year we are gonna bring it down until it comes to 0 in the next 5 years. It is a fixable problem.”
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The economist said, “Remember Kerala is 6 per cent, some places in Bihar and Jharkhand are worse than 35 per cent. There is a wide disparity in India. We can learn from the best even in India. Six per cent is the OECD levels.”
