The $5 Trillion Economy Dream

Modi 2.0 has set for itself the goal of virtually doubling the size of the Indian economy to $5 trillion by by 2024. Will we get there?

- Ashish Sinha

FINANCE MINISTER NIRMALA SITHARAMAN, in Union Budget 2019, laid down the contours of the government’s plan to make India a $5-trillion economy. PM Narendra Modi, speaking to BJP workers in Varanasi, his Lok Sabha constituency a day after the Budget explained the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of making India a $5 trillion economy over the next five years.

“The size of the cake matters. The bigger the cake, the bigger the share of everybody in it,” the PM said. “This is the reasonbehind our objective of making India a $5-trillion economy, which would increase the per capita income of people, which, in turn, would increase their purchasing power, demand and production, and trigger job growth.”

Steps like making India a manufacturing hub for solar panels, photo-voltaic cells, and e-vehicles would ultimately lead to a wider use of e-vehicles and solar panels which would reduce India’s oil bill. “We spend Rs 5-6 trillion to import petrol and diesel every year. It will strengthen India’s economy if this expenditure comes down with the use of solar power, wind power,” the PM said.

The Budget has made provisions for boosting farm and fisheries exports, making Rs 1,00,000 crore investment in infrastructure such as roads and ports in the next five years, constructing houses for all, promoting domestic manufacturing and cutting imports.