India to experience double-digit growth till 2023, declares the Principal Economic Advisor

Sanjeev Sanyal, the Principal Economic Advisor, stated on Tuesday that in the following years until 2023, India is likely to grow in double-digits.

"Some of our cities in peace time don"t have roads like Kabul had in war time. Vietnam has the same per capita income as India's but Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi are radically better run cities than ours," said Sanyal in a pitch to fix the Indian cities. 

"When I was younger, I used to think we are a poor country so our cities are in this mess. 30 years later, we are much richer as a country, but our cities are still in a mess, the occasional airport notwithstanding...we are not at all clear on what we want from our cities," he continued. 

He advised cities such as Mumbai and Delhi which are performing better in these aspects, to focus on intra-city infrastructure and elaborate municipal services such as garbage collection, reports The Hindu. 

"Many of these old masterplans, Le Corbusier-inspired planning and ideas that we still teach by the way in the SPA (School of Planning and Architecture) and other institutions, first of all, we need to throw them in the dustbin. We need to have modern planning principles, teach them, ensure ur municipalities understand and build modern cities," he stated.

He also recommended shifting the focus from searching for ideal government structures and assigning someone who will get the task done according to the expected standards. 

"It's not as f poor people do not know what to do with world class infrastructure. The reason the rich are the rich because they have access to good infrastructure. If you give the poor access to world class infrastructure, they will also become rich," continued Sanyal at the CII East India Summit. 

"The best solution to poverty is to create access to good infrastructure in parts of the country that don't have it."

"I think you find that this year, we will hit double digit growth rates and it is quite likely that we will hit double digit growth rates in the net financial year as well," he predicted. 

"We have even done politically difficult reforms like farm laws that may be in abeyance but let me say that broadly, we remain committed to reforming agriculture even if some changes may have to be done on the edges," he said, stressing that its the judicial system which also has to be cleaned up to ensure timely enforcement of contacts. 

After speaking on the reform which took place between 1991 to 2021, Sanyal explained how the next 30 years of reform should focus on what the Indian State needs to accomplish for the sake of its own people, which includes improving the infra-structure.