CHENNAI: Even as India’s GDP growth rises in the high-single digits, policy makers and industry bodies must push for the development of small industrial enterprises or districts, said economist S Gurumurthy, at the FICCI National Executive Committee Meeting held in Chennai on Thursday.
“The real performing India is not even on policymakers’ or industry bodies’ radar,” he said, stressing on the need for the government and business associations to look beyond policy making and support for metro cities.
“Do you know which place has the highest per capita income in India? It is not Kolkata or Delhi, Mumbai or Chennai. It is a place called Morbi in Gujarat,” he said. “Out of 2.4 lakh people, 1.4 lakh people are employed… You go to Surat, Ludhiana, Sivakasi, Tirupur... this is where real industrial development comes from,” he said.
While knitwear exports from Tirupur have exploded, he said, 67 per cent of these exporters are not educated above the 10th standard and there is no centrally connected infrastructure. Exporters also export on thin margins due to global competition. “Industrial demand will not go up unless we strengthen smaller industries and districts and I appeal to industrial bodies to help lift smaller industries and districts,” he said.