India’s economy to retain bright tag, says Arun Jaitley in J&K

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday said India is poised to maintain its tag of a ‘fast growing economy’ in the next two decades. “We [India] are looked at as one of the bright spots in the world and over the next one or two decades our potential to retain that position of a fast growing economy, as China did in the last three decades, would show that the lead now belongs to India (sic)”, Jaitley said while addressing students at the 17th convocation of Jammu University.

Jaitley told the student they would soon enter India’s career market which is full of opportunities. He said, “Most of you who got honoured with degrees today are going to enter the career market in India which is full of opportunities. The earlier generation entered the job market which was not full of those opportunities.”

Jaitley said Jammu and Kashmir would have been the most affluent part of the country had insurgency not struck the state. “I always wonder to myself where does a state like Jammu and Kashmir stand in the whole story. Conceptually if all is well with a limited population, a large area, the most beautiful spots in the world, handicrafts, a good agriculture being here and the best of the pilgrim centres and if all has been well historically, this should have been theoretically the most affluent part of this country. But unfortunately, the curse of insurgency struck us and I must say as a tribute to the academic fraternity.”

Praising the student community, he said despite living in the midst of a disturbed environment, yet they have been able to excel academically. “I am sure it is quite likely that ultimately it is this resilience and the opportunity that they see for themselves which is an opportunity which probably may end up bringing what is the ultimate objective as far as the state is concerned which is to bring peace into the state and work for the development of the state,” he said.