Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Saturday that economic growth alone won’t effectively help reduce poverty in the country without explicit policy interventions to create decent jobs, raise incomes of the weaker sections and prioritising investments in infrastructure as well as health and education.
Extolling India’s economic resilience in the eight years since the global financial crisis of 2008, Dr Singh said this reflected a maturing of economic thought in the country and the growing competitiveness of its enterprises.
“This has happened, even as our economy has become more integrated with global markets. It shows that participation in globalisation and achieving economic resilience can be sometimes a simultaneous process,” he said in an address at the annual conference of PHD Chambers of Commerce and Industry in the capital.
“Today, India is moving from the phase of 1991 economic reforms to a new era of sustainable development. The priority now must not only be accelerating growth, but the multi-dimensional aspects of growth — equity, inclusion, employment generation and environmental sustainability of economic and social processes,” he said.
While the country is growing at 7 per cent to 7.5 per cent, the ex-PM pointed out a significant gap in actual employment creation and the need to generate 12 million new jobs a year to tap India’s demographic dividend of a young population.
“While growth is necessary for poverty reduction, it is well known that it may not trickle down to the bottom group unless some pre-conditions are met,” he said, stressing the need to protect vulnerable groups from the risks inherent in the processes of change and focus on providing decent employment and raising the income of weaker sections.
