THE REFORMS WE NEED TO ACHIEVE 2047 GOAL

India needs to grow at around 8 percent a year through the next few decades to become a developed nation by 2047.

- CHANDRAJIT BANERJEE

This is an ambitious goal given the track record of other countries in this regard and India's own historical growth rates.

In the past, only a few countries such as China, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore have managed to sustain a growth rate of over 8 percent for a 25-year period. India's own growth rate has been 6.3 percent per annum between 2001-02 and 2023-24 and 6.7 percent excluding the Covid period.

Continuous reforms can help unlock India's growth potential and place it firmly on the required 7.5-8 percent growth trajectory. India's focus on reforms even during the tumultuous pandemic has been one of the key drivers of the nation emerging as the fastest growing major economy for three consecutive years in a row.

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has suggested many reforms and initiatives across multiple sectors of the economy as part of its proposals for the Union Budget 2025-26. Here, I focus on five key ones.

One, most of the next-generation reforms lie either in the concurrent domain or in the states' domain, and require consensus building among states and the Centre. The GST Council has been a shining example of consensus building on a very important reform.

Therefore, the government could consider constituting GST-like councils or an empowered group of secretaries, chaired by the cabinet secretary and comprising the chief secretaries of the states and relevant central secretaries to take forward factor market (land, labour and power) reforms as well as for reforms related to education, agriculture, climate action and fiscal sustainability.