If you watched Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani’s presentation last Wednesday on the ‘big unlocks’ needed to drive India’s growth from 6 per cent to 8 per cent and make it an $8 trillion economy by 2035, you would get a mixed feeling. It would be a tinge of disappointment about the structural flaws and disparities in our economy and a sense of elation and hope about its potential growth prospects.
Sample some flaws and disparities first:
- Only 13 out of 788 districts contribute to half of India’s gross domestic product (GDP)
- Per capita GDP of Bihar is one-sixth of Telangana’s—$652 to $3,811.
- The top 10 per cent earn 60 per cent of total income. The top 1 per cent earn Rs 53 lakh per annum (LPA), the top 10 per cent Rs 13.5 LPA, the middle 40 per cent Rs 1.65 LPA, and the bottom 50 per cent Rs 71,163 per annum.
- India’s labour productivity—real gross domestic product produced in an hour of work—is $7 per hour, compared to China’s $28 per hour, the UK’s $70 per hour, and the US’ $82 per hour.
- Only 29,000 businesses have a paid-up capital of Rs 10 crore. There is a gap of $530 billion between the demand and supply of capital for small businesses, with the current supply of $289 billion against the addressable demand of $819 billion.
Now, here are Nilekani’s solutions or what he calls the four ‘great unlocks’ that can change India’s growth trajectory: technology, capital, entrepreneurship, and formalisation. From integrating digital public infrastructure with artificial intelligence to tokenisation of land, capital access, and simplification of laws, he offered specific solutions and roadmap to realise the huge potential of the Indian economy.
Nilekani’s track record
A political hack like me has no expertise to weigh in on Nilekani’s ‘unlocks’. But the Infosys co-founder has a proven track record. The Manmohan Singh government had given him a one-page directive to “give every Indian a unique ID”. It didn’t say how. Nilekani converted it into Aadhaar, the world’s largest biometric ID system.
When Nilekani resigned as chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to contest the 2014 Lok Sabha elections as a Congress candidate from Bangalore South, his principal challenger from the BJP, Ananth Kumar, made Aadhaar a poll issue. Kumar alleged that it gave scope for illegal immigrants and anti-national agents to enrol into the system at the cost of real beneficiaries. He promised to scrap Aadhaar if the BJP came to power.
Well, the BJP did come to power at the Centre. Kumar became a Union cabinet minister, but he couldn’t keep the poll promise. As it happened, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a long meeting with Nilekani. The rest is history. Aadhaar-based direct benefit transfer became the centrepiece of Modi’s governance model.
A side story here was how, before his meeting with Modi, some friends had persuaded Nilekani to meet Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah in 2014 but it turned out to be a disaster, as Congress insiders tell this reporter. Siddaramaiah kept Nilekani waiting for a long time and then paid little attention to what he was saying. After all, what could the Infosys co-founder and Aadhaar architect offer to a politician who trusted caste, religion, and sub-nationalism as a substitute for governance? Karnataka’s loss turned out to be a big gain for India, as Modi listened to Nilekani and unleashed the transformative power of Aadhaar in governance.
That was a decade ago—a time when Modi was open to ideas and innovations, and sincerely engaged with experts from outside the BJP/RSS ecosystem.
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No more appetite for reform
As Nilekani lays out the roadmap for an $8 trillion economy now, Modi has other priorities. Modi 3.0 is much more about political survival than governance. Nothing should ruffle the allies’ feathers. Contentious issues such as the three-language policy, delimitation, simultaneous polls, and Waqf reforms are on the priority list. There is a sense of contentment, if not complacency, about governance. As if the Modi government has delivered to saturation level! As if it has implemented everything Deendayal Upadhyay ever wished for—from abolition of the Planning Commission to food security, healthcare for all, swadeshi, fiscal conservatism, et al.
That’s at least what the last few budgets have suggested—a populist internship scheme here and tax cuts there, with little imagination or innovation on display. For over four years, the four ambitious labour codes have been in limbo because the Centre won’t notify the rules on the pretext of waiting for all states to do it.
After backing down on the land acquisition bill in the first term and on farm laws in the second, Modi seems to have lost the appetite for reforms in the third. He talks about India becoming the third-largest economy by 2029, but never about where we stand in terms of per capita income—now or in future.
Listen to PM Modi’s speeches. While diatribe against the Opposition remains the central theme, the rest are almost all about old schemes—little is said about future plans. In the one in Surat on 7 March, he mentions Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (2020), Har Ghar Jal Abhiyan (2019), One nation, One Ration Card (2018), Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (2015), PM SVANidhi Yojana (2020), and PM Vishwakarma Scheme (2023). Apart from this, he also mentions schemes about free medical treatment up to Rs 5 lakh (Ayushman Bharat Yojana-PMJAY, 2018), toilets (Swachh Bharat Mission, 2014), pucca houses (Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, 2015), and gas connections (Ujjwala Yojana, 2016). With a couple of exceptions, all these schemes were launched during his first term in office.
In February 2024, weeks before the Lok Sabha elections, Modi directed his ministers to come up with 100-day action plans as also five-year roadmaps. Post elections, aside from a couple of important decisions—approval of Vadhavan port and national critical mineral mission—most of those action plans and roadmaps have been gathering dust.
When Nripendra Mishra was the Principal Secretary to the PM during his first term, he would hold sectoral review meetings every other day that would keep all ministries in mission mode. After PK Mishra replaced him, the practice continued for a while before tapering off, according to senior IAS officers. They say that PM Modi, who would often call individual secretaries to review the works in their ministries, has “almost stopped” such interactions.
The PM still calls the meetings of PRAGATI or Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation, but they are “more pro forma or for formality”, said the IAS officers.
A video clip that should tell us the story of governance in Modi 3.0 is from Darbhanga in Bihar from a fortnight ago. Union agriculture minister Shivraj Chouhan is seen getting into a muddy pond to talk with makhana farmers. The former Madhya Pradesh chief minister is credited with transforming the agriculture sector in his home state but has refrained from taking any bold initiative or reform since shifting to the Centre. He knows what matters more—optics or results.
Disclaimer: Nandan Nilekani is an investor in ThePrint. You can read our full list of investors here.
DK Singh is Political Editor at ThePrint. He tweets @dksingh73. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)
India certainly does not need more government power in the form of land acquisition or farm laws. The need is for laws to empower individuals to manage and dispose of their assets including agricultural land. The need is to remove laws that prevent this from happening.
Modi has no interest in growing India’s economy. He would rather keep Indians poor so he can win votes by distributing ‘revadis’. He wants voters to be supplicants rather than becoming proud and independent. Meanwhile he will ensure that India kowtows to China and the US.
Take one item, important for the economy. Power sector reforms. Directly related to making Indian manufacturing globally competitive. Also at the heart of India’s ( faster ) transition to renewable energy. It started with UDAY, for the discoms are financially stressed. Ten years later, political parties are competing with each other to offer free ( or almost free ) power to farmers, less well off households. 2. When prominent business houses got into the power sector, including renewables, I was optimistic that they would induce the government to undertake much needed reforms, led by rational pricing of power, on which their profitability and growth would depend. Somehow even that has not happened.
Nandan Nilenki should focus on his own company. In the last 5 years, the quality of work which Infosus gets is more and more low end. No involvements in any of the high end AI or Data science based projects.
Here are also some interesting things:
The average time to get a travel approval is 2 weeks. The time taken to settle travel bills and other claims are anything from 4 to 6 weeks. Atleast 40% of the projects are in red category – which means Infoys can be killed out by the companies any time