PM Modi: Economy is to join $5-trillion league

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India is set to join the $5-trillion economy club in due course of time, thanks to a series of structural reforms and policy interventions by his government.

The PM hinted that India's image, which had been damaged by a few scams and policy paralysis, has drastically changed over the past four years and the country has become a favoured destination for investors.

In his inaugural address at the three-day Magnetic Maharashtra Summit, Modi said people, development and investment-friendly vision has brought India into reckoning and investors across the globe now sees its potential to become a $5-trillion economy.

"We have taken governance to a level where there is minimum government. The country achieves higher growth when there is a holistic, inclusive and comprehensive vision. We have marched towards a direction where the state is policy-driven, governance is performance-driven and the government is accountable,'' he noted.

PM Modi said the Centre's budget is not limited to outlay and output, but focuses on outcomes. ''The Centre proposes 'Housing for All' by 2022 and 'Power for All' by 2019. Eight crore people will be given gas connections. We have put the focus on clean fuel and healthcare for all in the 2018-19 Budget. Structural and policy changes are helping farmers and the downtrodden,'' he pointed out.

The PM said the Centre has scrapped 1,400 laws and shifted focus to simplify laws and procedures.

''Improvements in 'ease of living' empower people. Empowerment of people improves social and economic development. Only when we understand the needs of the country and the aspirations of the people can we achieve our dream of a 'New India'. Only then can we do justice to India's vast demographic dividend,'' the PM noted.

Modi admitted that India can scale new heights of development when states prosper. He lauded states for holding investment summits to boost development.

''What we first started in Gujarat (Vibrant Gujarat), states are now replicating by organising investors meet. Magnetic Maharashtra is one such example," he said.

Showering praise on Maharashtra, the PM hailed the Fadnavis government's resolve to become a trillion dollar economy and said it will be the first state in the country to make it, with its emphasis on a number of development initiatives.

''Maharashtra has improved its standing in ease of doing business by removing bottlenecks but achieving inter-departmental cooperation. The state achieved 51 per cent of the total foreign direct investment last year,'' he said.

According to Modi, Mumbai is a maximum city with maximum aspiration. He praised the state government's push to infrastructure development by undertaking implementation of Mumbai Trans Harbour Link, increasing the metro rail network to 350 km, from 11 km, and the construction of Navi Mumbai airport.

Earlier, in his speech, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said the state's economy will become a trillion dollar economy by 2025, five years before the originally proposed 2030. ''We have conceived five big ideas which "include unlocking the potential of high growth sectors, unlocking potential of underemployed agriculture labour through skilling, special-policy reforms for services and industry with a target of 300 fintech start-up. The government will also increase public infrastructure and create growth corridors to unlock potential of underdeveloped region, he said.

PM AT MAGNETIC MAHARASHTRA

PM Narendra Modi called Magnetic Maharashtra Summit an example of cooperative competitive federalism. He also said:

• The Maharashtra government has targetted to make it India’s first trillion-dollar state
   
• In our efforts to build ‘New India’, we are creating a transparent ecosystem
   
• The state is policy-driven, governance is performance-driven, government is accountable, and democracy is participative

AT THE SUMMIT

• Top investors from India and abroad attended the first day
   
• Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Suresh Prabhu, Piyush Goyal and Ramdas Athavale were also present at the three-day event