Former Reserve Bank of India Governor C Rangarajan has said that 'Make in India', the flagship programme of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Union government, is an old idea and also emphasized that adequate focus is needed on infrastructure for it to succeed. He also said that the slogan has to be translated into action on the ground.
Talking on the GDP front, Rangarajan has said that India’s economic growth has slowed down. He pointed out that the country had an economic growth rate averaging between 8-9 per cent for 6-7 years and now growth rate of 7% or 6.7%. He also called for the government to address the slowing economic growth over the last few years, and said that Make in India may be one way to do that. Therefore, Rangarajan said that “Make In India is one aspect of that, mainly that you produce effectively to meet the needs of India. One important point here is that when you make goods for the world, you automatically become efficient and quality conscious”.
Rangarajan further said that the Trump administration’s policies will impact India’s exports. He also said that the kind of philosophy of Trump and others will affect shrinkage of world trade and exports from India will come down. However, he said that the economic growth is not dependent on the exports as India has not adopted an ‘export-led’ model for GDP expansion.