Will India Get Rich Before It Turns 100? – A Reality Check ….

….. The Prosenjit Prescription for Prosperity, and Growth

It isn’t easy to be an optimist when all one sees around oneself is unencouraging news regarding the economy at the ground level. But business journalist of repute, Prosenjit Datta, donned the hats of a researcher, a storyteller, and a crystal ball gazer to come up with a glass-half-full perspective in his prescription for progress, prosperity, and growth of the country.

Contained in his latest well-researched book ‘Will India Get Rich Before It Turns 100? – A Reality Check is not just a blueprint for the way forward for the country’s economic development and growth but also is a ready reckoner on various economic aspects of the country. A must-have book on the desk of business journalists, writers, thinkers, and consultants as it is a collection of well-researched write-ups covering various forward and backward linkages of the economy and the interplay between the different factors of production of goods and services.

“Will India …. Reality Check” is a book brought out by Aleph Book Company an independent publishing firm promoted by Rupa Publication, India.

Prosenjit Datta is a realist enough to see the mega challenges that are facing the nation and worries whether the masses can ever be comfortable and afford the basic food, clothing, and shelter and also the good things in life, which at present are on the plate of a lesser chunk of citizens even as a majority, nearly 60 percent of our population, has to be given free food grains to survive, as they simply cannot afford to buy.

Chances are that though India will become the third largest economy (by GDP), the chances are that India will continue to struggle to join the ranks of the ‘high-income’ or developed nations, even if India maintains its current growth rate for another 25 years.

But what Prosenjit Datta argues is that “We have still time of two decades today, and if we take corrective actions right away, we should be able to try and get there. But a big but, he says, it all depends on the governments’ (Centre and States) ability to, and more important, willingness.”

But we have the time, if and only if we act today. “We have two decades if, and only if, we make the correct decisions in the next few years. Things like investments in education and healthcare show up in the economy with a lag. If we fix our education today, we will reap the full effects only a decade or more from now,” Prosenjit Datta told Southonomix.com in an interview.

But it is not very difficult and neither it is rocket science.

Prosenjit Datta is confident and says it is not too difficult that we won’t be able to do it in two decades. It is not that people don’t know what to do. The government knows, the officials know, the economists know, and everyone knows what the problem is or problems are.

Education and health care are the two crucial areas one must urgently tackle if the country is to even hope to get to hope to become a high-income country, as it is the sure shot way other countries have developed and grown to be what they have become -prosperous, high-income countries, with high per capita incomes. We still have two decades to benefit from our population dividend. And if we miss this bus also, then chances are that our demographic dividend may turn into a demographic disaster as well.

First the most urgent and immediate need is to fix the school education system, and suddenly you cannot do much with an 18-year-old who has come this far without the knowledge and skills that he or she ought to have mastered by the time one reaches the higher education stage.

We need to immediately make course corrections to tackle our basic problems and also prepare for the mega new challenges coming our way – climate change and its impact on different aspects of the economy, including agriculture. An unhealthy nation cannot be efficient and productive and hence healthcare is the most important area that must be tended to, in the overall interests of growing rich.

But the biggest unknown of the challenge, in terms of its overall impact and pervasiveness, is the rapid strides technology is making – say for example artificial intelligence and its ability to eject people from jobs and livelihoods. Especially in the context of a man-power rich (being the most populous country in the world) nation with billion plus to feed, clothe, and house, India sure faces a challenge that nations earlier did not face at this stage of their economic history.

Again, the scary prospect of the demographic divide turning into a demographic disaster is something that the authorities must always keep in mind when framing policies and programmes – we need labour-intensive jobs, big factories employing masses rather than super high-tech factories that are run by robots and AI. Even huge investments in manufacturing nowadays are not a guarantee of jobs.

The other challenge is that, in the two decades to come, India will also start aging, and the country will have to tend to that ageing population that will not be working.

Can India, do it?

Yes, we can. In the 76 years since Independence, India has seen much progress, and it is already one of the top five economies in the world. And, the world’s fastest-growing large economy, but these achievements still hide an unpalatable truth. India today has the world’s largest population of people below the poverty line. Other than this India faces challenges in healthcare, education, and employment, and as well faces long-time threats such as global warming. Besides of course India needs to tackle the growth of AI and face potential disruptions like the Covid pandemic.

Prosenjit Datta declares that Indian policymakers need to be far more realistic about the current issues they will need to solve before they can hope for long-term high economic growth. The issues would include both those which they have some control over – and others which they are relatively less able to influence.

But Indian policymakers still have time – over two decades – and what is needed is policy focus and long-term planning. The path to developed country status is perhaps more difficult today than it was in the past, because of disruptions and Black Swan events. But still, there are many steps the policymakers can take to improve India’s chances of becoming a developed country by 2047.