Noting that the achievement of a USD 5 trillion economy is a short-term “aspirational goal,” former RBI Governor C Rangarajan on Saturday said even after that India will still be known as a middle-income country with a per capita income of USD 3472. In order to reach the level of an upper middle-income country, he underscored that the country will take another "two decades" to be classified as a "developed nation".
Further, he noted that the per capita income will have to be at a minimum of USD 13,205 and the economy should maintain strong growth of between 8 to 9 per cent in order to achieve the goal. Speaking at the 12th Convocation of ICFAI Foundation for Higher education in Hyderabad, Rangarajan said at the aggregate output level, India is the fifth largest economy in the world now. That by itself is an impressive achievement. But in terms of per capita income, India’s rank according to IMF is 142 out of 197 countries.
A long way!
“The immediate focus of policymakers must be to raise the growth rate of the economy. Achievement of a USD 5 trillion economy is a good short-term aspirational goal. This will take a minimum of five years of sustained growth of 9 per cent. Even then, at the end of it, India’s per capita income will be only USD 3472 and we will still be classified as a lower middle-income country,” he noted. “We have thus to go a long way. This only shows we must certainly need to run fast,” the former chairman of, the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister said.
Post Covid-19 and post the Russia–Ukraine war, there is a need to lay down a clear roadmap for India’s future development. Initially, there is a need to raise the growth rate to seven per cent and then follow it up with a growth rate of eight to nine per cent which is possible and India has shown in the past it can have that kind of growth rate over a sustained period of six to seven years, he said.
(With inputs from PTI)
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