The main task before the next government is to work towards growth recovery from the word “go”. While growth did improve to over eight per cent from the lows five some years back, and thereby enhanced India’s status as a growth leader in the global economy, it has since been scaled back. This is quite apparent in the slowdown of consumer spending, be it the fall in automobile sales or lower volumes of FMCG products being sold in the market or slower growth in consumer durables.
The current government has taken big steps in improving the average standard of living, where there has been a bottom-up approach aimed at solidifying the base, and also expanding it. This can be seen the successful financial inclusion programme of Jan Dhan Yojana that gave lower income households access to banking products. While the number of account holders has gone up threefold since it was introduced, the deposits in these accounts have expanded tenfold, thus showing that existing depositors are regularly adding to their balances.
Other notable schemes like Swachchh Bharat, Ayushman Bharat, Ujjwala, Smart Cities, etc, were launched with varied results. What is required is a renewed focus on implementation of these and other similar schemes.
Source: Deccan Chronicle
