'All economic data understate country's GDP growth rate'

‘We need to update base year and when we do it, our economic growth will be higher’

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VEN as the Indian economy emerged stronger after the second quarter GDP numbers, there are a few pain points that need to be addressed. Dipak Mondal and Monika Yadav in an interview with Sanjeev Sanyal, member, Economic Advisory Council of the Prime Minister (PM-EAC) discusses these issues. Here’re excerpts:

The PM is likely to unveil a Vision Document for 2047. What are the broad contours of that vision?

The next 25 years, which is the Amrit Kal, is not merely the coincidence of it being the 75th to 100 year (of independence) phase. It also coincides with many other things that are happening. This is also the 25 years where we will be at our demographic peak. Between now and then, the proportion of the population of working age will rapidly rise and then fall.

This is a phase where we will first go past Germany in the next 18 months and then the next 18 months we will go past Japan to become the world’s third-largest economy. Our per capita income still needs to go through a sharp upwards shift. So our effort will be to go through that so that extreme poverty is completely eliminated.