India to become third largest economy with GDP of $5 trillion in three years: Finance Ministry
Ten years ago, India was the 10th largest economy in the world, with a GDP of $1.9 trillion at current market prices.
Today, it is the 5th largest with a GDP of $3.7 trillion (estimate FY24), despite the pandemic and despite inheriting an economy with macro imbalances and a broken financial sector, said the ministry’s January 2024 review of the economy.
This ten-year journey is marked by several reforms, both substantive and incremental, which have significantly contributed to the country’s economic progress,” it said.
These reforms, it added, have also delivered an economic resilience that the country will need to deal with unanticipated global shocks in the future.
The ministry said that in the next three years, India is expected to become the third-largest economy in the world, with a GDP of $5 trillion.
“The government has, however, set a higher goal of becoming a ‘developed country’ by 2047. With the journey of reforms continuing, this goal is achievable,” it said.
The Nirmala Sitharaman-headed ministry stressed that the reforms will be more purposeful and fruitful with full participation of state governments.
The participation of states will be fuller when reforms encompass changes in governance at the district, block, and village levels, making them citizen-friendly and small business-friendly and in areas such as health, education, land and labour, in which states have a big role to play, it said.
“The strength of the domestic demand has driven the economy to a 7% plus growth rate in the last three years…in FY25, real GDP growth will likely be closer to 7%,” said the review report, and added there is, however, considerable scope for the growth rate to rise well above 7% by 2030.
The review observed that it is eminently possible for the Indian economy to grow in the coming years at a rate above 7% on the strength of the financial sector and other recent and future structural reforms. Only the elevated risk of geopolitical conflicts is an area of concern.
“Furthermore, under a reasonable set of assumptions with respect to the inflation differentials and the exchange rate, India can aspire to become a $7 trillion economy in the next six to seven years (by 2030),” it said.
In the preface of the review report, Chief Economic Adviser V Anantha Nageswaran said the Union government has built infrastructure at a historically unprecedented rate, and it has taken the overall public sector capital investment from ₹5.6 lakh crore in FY15 to ₹18.6 lakh crore in FY24, as per budget estimates.
He noted that the global economy is struggling to maintain its recovery post-Covid because successive shocks have buffeted it. Some of them, such as supply chain disruptions, have returned in 2024.
If they persist, they will impact trade flows, transportation costs, economic output and inflation worldwide, he said.
India is known for a range of diverse and culturally rich products
Some of the most famous include intricate textiles like silk and cotton fabrics, spices that are essential to its cuisine, handcrafted jewellery, and beautiful eccentric art.
A basic case for India’s cultural vastness is fundamentally based in its religions and the festivals that mark their hypotheses. The world has been left in much awe of India’s cultural heterogeneity when its religious expositions have enchanted and mesmerised countries with a deep interest in what the make of India is. To describe India as a ‘land of cultures’ is to synonymise the pot and the kettle. The taking of the proverbial fish to the pond is the congruence between India and cultures. India cannot live without its varied set of cultures, while its cultures and subcultures are bland and meek in the absence of India.
Cultures comprise diverse religions with principles and identities unique to them and those that have amassed a number of followers and believers, belief systems encompassing rules and norms that cater to said cultures, common behaviour that results in the portrayal and depiction of cultures in various strata of society, and tenets of cultures such as festivals and ceremonies that take place within the essence and ambit of time.
The Ministry of Culture views cultures as carrying infinite dimensions by including pluralism, languages, cultural education and studies, history, exchanges, exhibitions, films, arts, drama, music, monuments, the manufacture of ancient and modern Indian handicrafts, historical manuscripts and papers, heritage (such as sites of archaeological distinction and others such as India’s maritime heritage), the treatment of the poor and the underprivileged in Indian society, and un-emphasised traditions as being inclusive to the gargantuan umbrella of what encompasses the cultural domain.
The dawn of Indian culture can be traced back to the belief that India’s cultural leanings were among the first-ever. From the very foundations of India as a civilisation, it was culture that was all-pervasive. The Indus Valley and Harappan civilisations were the two civilisations which existed 5,000 years ago. Indian cultural inceptions can be traced back to the very founding of India as a civilisation thousands of years ago. Over the years, Indian culture transformed itself into what it has become today, fusing together modern principles and ideals on its journey to the twenty-first century (with a truly unfortunate colonial standstill in between).