“If we can grow at 10% for 10 years, we will fast forward and become the most developed country of the world, beating China and the United States of America,” Dr. Subramanian Swamy, economist and Rajya Sabha MP said at the World Hindu Economic Forum on Saturday.
Dr. Swamy was speaking on ‘Steps for fast-forwarding the Bharat’s economy’ on the second day of the forum. “At one point we were the most prosperous country in the world. We have a long history and are different from a country that has never been developed. We were a developed country in the 19th century, exporting to the whole world, before the Islamic invasion and the British rule led to our GDP drop,” he said.
Speaking about the 70 years since Independence, he said India wasn’t traditionally poor but was made poor. “We should have recovered faster but Jawaharlal Nehru decided to impose a soviet economic model on our country,” Mr. Swamy said.
He said the first step towards India’s fast-forwarding is the abolishing of income-tax, following which the rate of savings and investment will go up.
“Today, income tax is the most unbalanced tax in our country. There is no income tax in agriculture and low-income groups, and the rich hardly pay anything because of their chartered accountants. The working class, young entrepreneurs, start-ups are the most harassed. When income tax is abolished, the public will be very happy,” he said.
He also pointed out the importance of building infrastructure and cited China’s example. “How do they finance it? They just printed notes. When you print notes and then pay the workers for working on the infrastructure, they become a part of the demand. And because we have created this infrastructure, the economy starts booming. Potential of goods and services also starts booming. This is the way for us to move. China has done that, so can we,” he said.
He highlighted that, no economy wants to conduct trade with India because of its poor infrastructure and several regulations.
“Agriculture is the most promising sector of India. We have the lowest prices of rice, wheat and milk but at par qualities with abroad. Our flowers are as good in quality as Amsterdam’s and yet we have not explored exporting. Indians are doing well all over the world except in India. 70% of our population is under 35 years of age and they should be given the opportunity to invent solutions across issues and sectors,” Dr. Swamy said.
