On August 15 of 2022, independent India will turn 75. India is on the cusp of a major transformation. India’s youthful and aspiring population deserves double-digit economic growth, jobs and prosperity to all.
Modi 2.0 government, with a stronger decisive mandate in the recently concluded general election will now push its economic agenda very hard with the following objectives:
Steadily accelerate the gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate to achieve a target of about 8 per cent during 2018-23 (this target has been set to catalyse policy action and does not represent a forecast). This will raise the economy’s size in real terms from $2.7 trillion in 2017-18 to nearly $4 trillion by 2022-23. Besides having rapid growth, which reaches 9-10 percent by 2022-23, it is also necessary to ensure that growth is inclusive, sustained, clean and formalised. (1)
India hopes to scale its GDP to $3 million in this fiscal 2019-20 itself. It will make India displace UK and rank 5th in the world economy. It is further expected to reach GDP of $5 trillion and supersede Japan by 2025.
Natural resources and its economic exploitation is one of the major drivers of growth of a nation. With about 1.33 billion population and 328 million hectares of land; India ranks 2nd and 7th in global population and geographical areas respectively. With well-endowed mineral and metallic resource to the extent of 20 percent of global resources, India ranks 4th after China, USA and Russia in the global mineral production. However, it ranks 8th in mineral production in terms of value of minerals.
India has a huge mineral potential, as its prospective geology is broadly similar to that of Western Australia, especially in relation to iron ore, bauxite, coal, diamonds, and heavy minerals sand. The country has identified 5.71 lakh sq. km as the obvious geological potential (OGP) area, but only 10 percent of it has been explored and 1.5 per cent is being mined.
This story is from the July 2019 edition of Steel Insights.
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This story is from the July 2019 edition of Steel Insights.
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