NEW DELHI: India can become a middle-income country and reach a per capita income of USD 10,000 or USD 20 trillion economy by 2047 if it manages to achieve a sustained growth rate of 7-7.5%, said Bibek Debroy, Chairman to the Economic Advisory Council (EAC) - Prime Minister, on Tuesday.
India currently has per capita income of USD 2,000 and is categorised as a lower middle-income country. For India to become a middle-income country today, it should have a per capita income of USD 6,100. Debroy admitted that inequality in income widens when there is a fast economic growth and said that the government has been trying to plug the gaps when it comes to inequity in accessing education, health etc.
Debroy was speaking at an event to release a report -- Competitiveness Roadmap for India@100 -- which has been drafted in a collaborative endeavour between EAC and PM, The Institute for Competitiveness (IFC) and Professor Michael E. Porter and Dr Christian Ketels from Harvard Business School.
India can become a middle-income country and eventually a high-income country by overcoming three challenges - shared prosperity, job creation and policy implementation, as per the report “India@100 report by Institute for Competitiveness (IFC).
Despite the rise in gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate, income inequality in India has been rising dramatically. Large part of the country remains unconnected to the modern Indian and global economy, the report said. “Roughly 20% of its population is below the poverty line..this is a large improvement as compared to the more than 45% at the beginning of the reforms in the early 1990s,” the report stated.
However, the country continues to suffer from a high incidence of malnourishment, especially among children. 35% of Indian children under 5 years are subject to stunting, which is a relatively higher number when compared with peer group countries.
Meanwhile, since 2000, inequality in terms of wealth and income has become more pronounced in urban areas in spite of the fall in poverty level. This is in sharp contrast with global dynamics and other emerging economies.