India’s GDP growth in H1FY24 supported by infra spending, good performance by large economies: Rajan

14 Dec 2023 Evaluate

Attributing the sharp uptick in India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the first half of the current fiscal (H1FY24) to infrastructure spending and good performance by large economies of the world, Former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan said that India has to do a lot of catching up and the $5 trillion economy goal for 2025 is nearly impossible. He further said that even as India’s growth rate is strong, private investment and private consumption have not picked up. India retained the tag of the world’s fastest-growing major economy, with its GDP expanding by a faster-than-expected rate of 7.6 per cent in the July-September quarter on booster shots from government spending and manufacturing.

He noted that over the last four years, from the pre-pandemic days till today, the Indian economy has grown about 4 per cent a year. He said ‘That is way below our growth potential (economic growth rate) of 6 per cent. So you said inflation is contained. One of the reasons inflation is contained is we haven’t even grown at our potential rate’. He emphasised that India needs to grow much faster as the worrying fact that the growth is not providing enough jobs. He said ‘We are about 5 per cent below our trendline which was the pre-pandemic trendline. So there is some catch-up to be done at this point’.

Noting that for democracy to work, the government needs to share the data with the people, he said ‘You can not simply pull numbers out of a hat and say…we will be a $5 trillion economy by 2025.’ According to Rajan, it is virtually impossible for India to become a $5 trillion economy by 2025 unless a ‘miracle’ happens. He explained ‘Because we are now maybe $3.5 trillion economy, to be a $5 trillion economy, you have to grow at 12 to 15 per real growth rate over the next two years’. Rajan wondered whether the government has any plan for increasing India’s economic growth from the current 6 per cent-plus to 12-15 per cent.

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