Indian Economy: Progress and Prospects
By Deepak Mohanty ∗
It is an honour and privilege for me to be speaking at Harvard to such a distinguished audience. I thank Professor Benjamin Friedman and Professor Tarun Khanna for this opportunity. I will be speaking on the Indian Economy. India is home to 1.21 billion people, which is about 17.4 per cent of the global population. However, it accounts for only 2.4 per cent of world GDP in US dollar terms and 5.5 per cent in purchasing power parity (ppp) terms. Hence, there exists a huge potential for catch up. The global welfare too is linked to progress in India as reflected in the keen global interest in India. But, India seems to inspire and disappoint at the same time. This is reflected in various comments on the Indian economy. Yasheng Huang and Tarun Khanna in their much debated article in July 2003 issue of Foreign Policy had observed: “Can India surpass China? This is no longer a silly question”. The July 23rd 2011 issue of The Economist observed; “Twenty years ago they said the yardstick against which India should be measured was its potential. On that measure, there is much to do.” As a fledgling democracy, India’s economic experiment of planned development was held out as an example to many aspiring low-income countries in the 1950s. While some countries raced ahead in the development process, India lagged behind. This is evident from the fact that it took 40 long years from 1950-51 for India’s real per capita GDP to double by 1990-91. But, 1991-92 was a defining moment in India’s modern economic history as a severe balance of payments (BoP) crisis prompted far reaching economic reforms, unlocking its growth potential. As a result, in only 15 years, India’s per capita income doubled again by 2006-07. If the current pace of growth is maintained, India’s per capita income could further double by 2017-18, in 10