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(GIST OF KURUKSHETRA) Growth and Employment

[March-2022]

Growth and Employment

Introduction:

To achieve 5 trillion economy, the opportunity to introduce reforms and interventions which would put India on a high growth trajectory.
India would risk a decade of rising unemployment and economic stagnation. Budget 2022-23 has set the stage for transforming India through this Amrit Kaal.

Factors regarding transformation:

The key to such a transformation lies in a technology-driven approach, can be achieved only when we advance technology and foster innovation through structural reforms.
The Hon’ble Finance Minister highlighted the sunrise opportunities for India – Artificial Intelligence; Geospatial Systems and Drones; Semiconductor and its ecosystem; Space Economy; Genomics and Pharmaceuticals; Green Energy; and Clean Mobility Systems.
The first goal of the Amrit Kaal – complementing the macro-economic growth with micro-economic all-inclusive welfare - serves as a guiding principle here.
The envisaged transformation pursued through a technology-driven approach must also be people-centric.
Only a return to rapid and sustained GDP expansion, fuelled by high productivity growth will enable the large-scale creation of gainful opportunities needed for these workers.

The PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan

The PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan will encompass the seven engines for economic transformation, seamless multimodal connectivity and logistics efficiency.
It will also include the infrastructure developed by the state governments as per the Gati Shakti Master Plan.
The focus will be on planning and financing through innovative ways, use of technology, and speedier implementation.
The projects pertaining to these seven engines in the National Infrastructure Pipeline will be aligned with PM Gati Shakti framework.
The touchstone of the Master Plan will be world class modern infrastructure and logistics synergy among different modes of movement - both of people and goods - and location of projects. This will help raise productivity, and accelerate economic growth and development.

Tele-education and digital education:

Tele-education and digital education can provide a resilient mechanism for education delivery and lead to improved education outcomes.
The expansion of the ‘One class - One TV channel’ programme of PM eVIDYA will enable all states to provide supplementary school education in regional languages. High quality e-content can be developed and delivered over internet and mobile phones, with a special focus on female education.
Leveraging virtual labs in science and mathematics can also promote crucial critical thinking skills. Teacher training programs to integrate use of digital tools in teaching will facilitate better learning outcomes.
Integration of vocational training in school and higher education will provide youth with hands-on experience, reduce on-job training time, and improve productivity.
In addition to all the above reforms, India’s business leaders must also help to restore the country to a high-growth path. That will require focus on three key themes.
First, firms would need to raise aspirations and commit to productivity growth through business ideas based on the sunrise sectors. The risk-averse nature needs to change, and be replaced with acceptance of risk in an informed, educated, and calculated manner.
Second, businesses need to develop a long-term value creation mindset coupled with a strong performance-oriented culture; both of these create stakeholder value in the long-term. This implies adopting a forward-looking approach to investment, building an organisational culture that focuses on long-term value creation, and articulating a shared vision and purpose with accountability to all stakeholders.
Third, firms will need a set of winning capabilities if they are to emerge as large, high growth, globally competitive businesses. These are as follows:

a. Customer-centric Innovation- Firms that have been able to create winning propositions have seen high revenue and profit growth. Both large and small firms across sectors need to build capabilities that enable razor-sharp understanding and focus on customer needs along with innovation, localisation and tailoring for India, along the value chain of product design, pricing, distribution and the back-end.

b. Operational Excellence and Scalable Platforms- Firms across sectors will need to ramp up digital and data capabilities to create lean, scalable operating platforms. Such measures could go from installing digital architecture for back-offices, digitising supply chains, and moving customer sales and service interfaces online. Automation and the full gamut of Industry 4.0 techniques will need to be at the forefront of this wave, including assembly-line automation and IOT-enabled data analytics, amongst others.

c. Ability to be Ahead of the Curve and Win in Discontinuities- Companies that are pioneers in their fields and shape new ecosystems tend to capture disproportionate value. Critical capabilities for firms of the future will be reshaping established business practices, fostering creativity and nimbleness, and making bold capital allocation decisions.

d. Well-executed Mergers, Acquisitions, and Partnerships- With India’s fragmented corporate landscape, particularly in sectors such as retail, logistics, and construction, consolidation could be the key to regaining a competitive advantage. Firms will need to build their mergers and acquisition and partnership muscle and learn how to capture value by consolidating disaggregated and distributed players.

Conclusion:

India is at a turning point. Faced with the challenge of driving the sunrise sectors to supply sustained high-growth rates while creating 90 million jobs over the next decade, the country will need to implement significant reforms across the economy.
At a time when the global economy has taken severe knocks from the COVID-19 pandemic, restoring 8.0 to 8.5 percent GDP growth is an ambitious goal.
Yet India has shown time and again over the past three decades that it can confound even the loudest sceptics and put in place the key changes that enable its economy to outperform. Over the next decade, India needs to do so once again.