It's time India regains its lost-glory on economic front

British economist, Angus Maddison, who specialised in the measurement and analysis of economic growth and development, had documented that India was the largest economy of the world with the highest share in world GDP during 1 to 1000 AD. Over the next 600 years, India intermittently fell to the second position, but reclaimed the position of the world's largest economy by 1700 AD with a share of 24.4 per cent of world GDP. Since then, there has been an inexorable loss of share, according to Dr Patra

From the time of mortgaging our gold reserves 3 decades ago to meet the balance payment crisis following an acute economic meltdown, India has come a long way to oust UK from its position and marching ahead

Having surpassed United Kingdom (UK) as the fifth largest economy in the world, India as predicted by the economic research department of State Bank of India (SBI) is likely to get the tag of world's 3rd largest economy in 2029, upwards by seven places since 2014 when India was ranked 10th.

Of late there has been a pattern to link everything to 2014 because that was the year when Naredra Damodardas Modi took over the position of Prime Minister of the country heralding an era of centralised policy making and implementation with the sole intent of challenging the status quo. As per estimates India should surpass Germany in 2027 and Japan by 2029 at the current rate of growth. According to the SBI, this is a remarkable achievement by any standards.

Though India's GDP growth of 13.5 per cent in Q1FY23 was below the projections made by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), still India, at this rate, is likely to be the fastest growing economy of the world in the current fiscal.

The share of India's GDP in the world is now at 3.5 per cent, as against 2.6 per cent in 2014 and it is likely to cross 4 per cent in 2027, the current share of Germany in global GDP. It is believed that in the coming years India would benefit at the cost of China which is witnessing a slowdown in terms of new investments.

The China Plus One strategy adopted by many multinational corporations following the Pandemic is driving many of them to India. For example recently Apple decided to shift part production of iPhone 14 model for worldwide shipping from India. Many such moves would create high value jobs in India and this is expected to lead to a broad-based growth in employment.

China which embarked on an accelerated growth path at the beginning of the 21st century became the second largest economy in a few years and India can emulate that. Recently RBI's Deputy Governor Michael Debabrata Patra had observed that India, if it achieves a growth rate of 11 per cent into the next decade, could become the second largest economy in the world by 2031 not by 2048 as projected earlier.

Even if the country does not sustain that pace and slows to 4-5 per cent in 2040-50, it would still become the largest economy of the world by 2060 surpassing China, he had opined.

The age of Japan started in the 1960s and lasted through 1970s and 1980s. The age of China began in the early 1990s, though growth accelerated towards the beginning of this century taking it to the second position and India's time seems to have started from 2015 and its transformation is now in the making.

As per the Organisation of Economic Co-operation & Development's 2021 calculations the Indian economy would overtake the US by 2048. This would make India the largest economy in the world after China in normal course.

British economist, Angus Maddison, who specialised in the measurement and analysis of economic growth and development, had documented that India was the largest economy of the world with the highest share in world GDP during 1 to 1000 AD.

Over the next 600 years, India intermittently fell to the second position, but reclaimed the position of the world's largest economy by 1700 AD with a share of 24.4 per cent of world GDP.

Since then, there has been an inexorable loss of share according to Dr Patra. From the time of mortgaging our gold reserves three decades ago to meet the balance payment crisis following an acute economic meltdown, India has come a long way to oust UK from its position and marching ahead. Though the road to prosperity is full with potholes, it is now the right time to flawlessly implement strategies so as to regain the lost glory.

(Kalinga Nath is a

Mumbai-based senior journalist)