It seems Asia's third largest economy is finally out of trenches. After years
of sluggish growth, India is now on top gear. As per a recent UN report, India's GDP is expected to grow by 7.5% in the year 2015 & 7.7% in 2016. Whereas China is projected to grow by 7% in 2015 & 6.8% in 2016 which is significantly lesser than that of India. This effectively makes India the fastest growing G-20 major economy, a title that was hitherto held by China. The strong acceleration in India has enabled South Asia (SAARC) to become the fastest growing region in the world. The region's GDP is projected to grow by an impressive 6.7% in 2015 & 6.9% in 2016 - a significant upward revision of previous forecast. "This revision mostly reflects higher growth trajectory in India" it said.
This almost confirms that the chances of India redoing a China is still bright. China's feat of increasing its GDP per capita by about 30 times in just 30 years is regarded as the greatest achievement in the economic history of the world. What is not talked about is an equally impressive achievement of India. It is to be noted that, at the turn of the century India's GDP was at around US$ 475 billion. But within 15 years it increased by a staggering 486% to reach US$ 2,308 billion in 2015. Even if we assume that India falls short of PM Modi's target of US$ 15 trillion by 2030, we can safely assume that India will be at US$ 11-12 trillion in the year 2030. This would mean that India's GDP has increased by 23-25 times in a span of 30 years (2001 to 2030) which almost equals China's achievement. In the view of fact that India has its own democratic commitments & constraints which are absent in China's case, India's growth story deserves to be hailed as the greatest in the history of mankind. Given that India has made rapid strides in improving infrastructure, cutting red tape, simplifying tax regime & that its present government is committed to reforms, we can say that this IS NOT just a dream. If China can do it, there is no reason India can't.
