India and the US are BFFs (best friends forever), and each united by powerful mutual interests need each other today more than ever. India took 63 years to reach $1 trillion GDP, seven years to reach $2 trillion, three years to reach $3 trillion and projected to reach $25 trillion by 2047 (as per PricewaterhouseCoopers), 100 years after independence Is.
In 1700, India accounted for more than 35% of global GDP, making it the world’s largest, and by the time of the economic crisis in 1991, this had fallen to about 1%. Today, it is at around 4%-5% and rising. The United States desperately needs this market, and India needs America’s capital and its technology – both military and non-military.
By 2030, India’s working population will be one billion, which is more than the entire G8 population; Today, its Internet coverage is roughly equal to that of the . As recently as eight years ago, India’s per capita mobile data consumption was among the lowest (122nd) in the world, and today it ranks one behind the United States and China, helping everyone enjoy prosperity . Every corner of India.
A ‘green-friendly’ success story
Let’s look at the story of infrastructure, which is a significant success, and its multiplier effect – the benefits will reverberate over the next five to 10 years because these are long-term projects. Infrastructure spending has picked up, while maintaining fiscal prudence. Fiscal expansion and yet removing fiscal prudence is a very difficult task and the finance ministry has done well. Let’s take an example of how a combination of a carbon tax on fuel, as well as a coal cess and infrastructure development cess, led to substantial savings to fund at least a part of the expansion of rail, roads and ports. It was “green” because the infrastructure being built was green-friendly and the tax was on non-green items. Fuel subsidy has come down from around ₹50,000 crore in 2015 to just ₹7,000 crore now. And if extrapolated to rising GDP, the savings would be of the order of $9-$10 billion.
What is often not appreciated is that from merely listing a project on PRAGATI, or Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation (monthly review of each Union, State Government stakeholder by the Prime Minister) officials have been issues pending government orders or clearances, and generally positively smooths the system to ‘debottleneck’ infrastructure. A lot of preparation goes behind each progress review across departments and states, to ensure that decisions are being made (and not deferred), which is delivering infrastructure. Simultaneously, Dynamic, a Geospatial Information System Overlayer powerful tool prevents unnecessary and haphazard cutting of roads and forests, thereby saving time and resources.
Also, for the first time, the private sector was allowed commercial coal mining, reaping huge rewards for Odisha, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh, all non-National Democratic Alliance states. While no new oil exploration contracts were awarded between 2010-17, by the end of 2023, five lakh square kilometers will be under exploration contracts.
Promote transparency and efficiency
Money for megainfrastructure spending also became possible due to another unannounced reform of the public financial management system. It is a centralized transaction system to improve transparency, accountability and efficiency in government financial spending and to prevent wastage and leakages. It has done what was often considered impossible – a centralized core database integration of various platforms with banks, thereby helping make payments directly to beneficiaries, reducing time and cost while increasing efficiency. Till date, around 1,200 million beneficiaries, and 592 banks have handled over 6,000 million transactions with a transaction value of $1.64 trillion, covering over 12,000 central and state government schemes.
Similarly, while there has been impressive progress on road construction across India, not much is talked about the transport system, which is a one-stop system for transport across 1,400 transport offices, providing a leakage-proof revenue collection of ₹4,000 billion. enables. Registration of about 350 million vehicles and 150 million licenses.
India receives $100 billion in remittances and about 20 million, a little less than the total global expatriate population of about 280 million, are impressive and are now brimming with pride and confidence on the global stage. Earlier India used to stand as one of the 195 countries of the world in any global gathering, but today it stands shoulder to shoulder with the G-8.
India’s global rise is largely due to the Prime Minister’s personal reach and ability to forge strategic friendships with world leaders quickly and with mutual value. To add to this, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has an astute understanding and articulation of India’s position on global forums. He addressed a closed-door meeting of a leading global management consulting firm in the United States, faced tough questions and answered them with ease.
India needs to shed its non-alignment of the past and measure each situation on its merits and national interest, as it did with Russian oil. India received the oil at a competitive price and traded, refined and sold a “Made in India” product back to the Europeans. It was the kind of deal that would make any global private equity fund proud – however hypocritical the world might want to view it.
much to be done
Indeed, much remains to be done. India needs greater digitization of internal processes and better services delivery using India Stack, revive stalled agricultural reforms, build supply chain capacity and move manufacturing to India as companies look to other homes outside China research, and deep judicial reform to name a few. , India has a trade deficit of $290 billion (9% of GDP and twice its pre-COVID-19 high); Around 50% of India is still stuck in agriculture and manufacturing is stuck at 14%-15% of GDP. American capital and technology can help in many of these areas. As India completes 75 years of independence, it cannot afford to get stuck in ‘ambassador car’ defense technology and needs significant US help to modernize and build up its capabilities.
Both Republicans and Democrats have viewed India as an important civilizational ally and strategic partner for many years, and a surprise waltz is underway. This is reflected in the fact that after Winston Churchill and Nelson Mandela, Narendra Modi has become the only major world leader to address the US Congress twice. It’s not an easy recognition America gives, and they certainly aren’t devout.
India and the US are friends, but not allies (and Pakistan is an ally, not a friend), Stephen Cohen often used to say. The journey from friendship to friendship is short and needs to be walked both here and now. Why not start with easy wins? The US allows immigration formalities to be completed at 15 locations across the world including Abu Dhabi. Since visa issues will come to the fore this time, why not add Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi to the list which will make traveling that much easier for the average citizen?
Srivatsa Krishna is an IAS officer. The views expressed are personal. @shrivatskrishna