India have to become a ‘developed’ country from a ‘developing’ country by 2047, the Narendra Modi government has set a target in front of the country.
At first glance this may seem like an unrealistic order. One can also see some golden deer mark pledges in it.
Among these ‘golden deer’ are promises to double farmers’ income by 2022 or take industrial production to 25 percent of gross national product or GDP or make India a 5 trillion US dollar economy by next year.
It should also be remembered that the government has not given any clear definition of what exactly is meant by ‘developed country’.
Again there is no international standard by which the term ‘advanced’ can be understood.
There are different indicators of development. Some of those indicators talk about income level, some deal with health and education standards, some refer to standard of living (at least in terms of electricity or safe drinking water services).
Employment opportunities, poverty line, inequality, technological status etc. are also various indicators of development is used.
Looking at all these indicators, it may seem that India is not reaching the desired points in many cases.
From that point of view, setting such a goal in the next 25 years may seem a little too ambitious. But what about life without ambition?
1947 to 2047 – It is really difficult to reach this goal in this one hundred years, especially if you think about the speed of development.
Now what have to do if government want to achieve the target?
The per capita income of the people of this country should be increased more than five times within the next 24 years. To do that, the economy needs to have an annual growth rate of at least 7 percent. From the moment the country’s population growth starts to be counted, care should be taken to ensure that the GDP growth is faster than that. This motion has so far remained elusive except in a few small areas.
Few countries have achieved such rapid growth over the long term. India is still far from reaching that level. To put it bluntly, India will not reach the desired ‘high income’ milestone in 2047.
Rather, meeting the ‘high stakes’ human development goals may be somewhat easier. It should be remembered that India has improved considerably in the human development table in the last 25 years.
If that rate of development is maintained, India could reach the ‘peak’ level or 0.800 in the table by 2047 from its recent position of 0.633.
This time let’s look at another criterion. If we judge the share of high-tech goods in the exports of manufactured goods of a country, it will be seen that in case of India it is 10 percent.
The figure is on par with Brazil or Russia. Its average in the world is 20 percent. 30 percent in case of China. In the case of Pakistan, only 1 percent!
In terms of research, India’s overall pace is quite fast. India ranks fourth in the world in quantitative terms.
The figure that China has released is, however, five times higher than that of India. So, as fast as the wheels of development roll, the question of meeting the criteria of ‘developed country’ is still a blur.
An aspirational view of India is also possible from poverty statistics. At a time when India was a low-income country, a per capita daily income of US$ 2.15 could mark the country as ‘extremely poor’.
But now the country has touched the border of low-middle income. Now it is not possible to give that old title.
The lower-middle income criterion is a daily per capita income of US$3.65 (90 rupees per day in Indian currency, 10,800 rupees per month for a family of four in terms of purchasing power).
From that point of view, millions of Indians are still poor. India will have to climb quite a bit to cross the upper-middle income threshold. Daily per capita income should be taken to 6.85 US dollars.
It is important to remember that even if India has the status of ‘developed country’ in 2047, it cannot be called a unique example.
Already, more than 80 countries have been identified as ‘high-income countries’ by the World Bank, while India has a lower-middle-income stamp.
The United Nations Development Program has identified more than 65 countries as having ‘very high’ levels of human development. There India is in the ‘medium’ level.
India is yet to reach even close to the ‘high’ level. India lags far behind in eradicating what is called multidimensional poverty.
If India continues to strive for the pinnacle of development, it must be said that the pinnacle is already crowded.
If India gets there by 2047, it will be too late. If we understand this picture of reality, India will be able to come out of its barren pride.
The record of the last three decades is certainly remarkably good. However, there is still a lot of work to be done to reach that goal.
