10 'champion states' required to trigger growth rate in India: Amitabh Kant

NITI Aayog CEO also called for institutional restructuring and focus on export market

The country needs about "10 champions of states" to push growth rate to 10 per cent plus level, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said on Thursday.

Kant said that seven eastern states and 201 districts are holding India back and it is not possible for the country to grow without improving quality of life in these states and districts.

"You need about 10 champions of states in India to grow at 10 per cent plus. You need to create a huge sense of competition among these states. If they grow then India grows very rapidly," he said during a panel discussion at the Economist Summit in New Delhi.

Kant also stressed on institutional restructuring to achieve a high rate of growth.

"You can't grow with 19th-century institutions in the 21st century, so you need to restructure. Which is why we are working on restructuring institutions like the Medical Council of India (MCI), the University Grants Commission of India (UGC) and the AICTE," he said.

Stating that if anybody thinks India can grow only on the back of domestic demand then he is sadly mistaken, Kant said that what you get in the export market is 10 times over what you get in the domestic market.

"So, we need to export more. Secondly, India must believe in size and scale. Indian companies must increase, must enlarge," Kant said.

He also said that India must embrace technology at all level.

Kant lamented that ambition and hunger in private sector to capture global market just does not exist in India.

Pointing out that in the future 80 per cent of GDP will come from urban areas, he said, "in the next 50 years, India will do more urbanisation than it has done in last 5,000 years".