Vital role of energy, petroleum sectors in making India a $5 tn economy: Amit Shah

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday said that petroleum and energy sectors would play a vital role in making India a five trillion dollar economy.

Speaking at the seventh Convocation ceremony of Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay Petroleum University here, Shah said, "Calling for the development of oil and gas and energy sectors, Shah said that the government had taken several initiatives to develop the sectors, such as the new Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP), but still more needs to be done."

Shah remarked that while India comprised of 18 per cent of the world's population, its energy consumption is only 5.4 per cent of the global energy consumption, which proved that the per capita energy consumption in India is quite low.

Speaking about the country's economy in presence of Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Raupani, and Industrialist and entrepreneur Mukesh Ambani, Shah said that in 2014, the country's economy was not in good shape and now in 2019, India is still the fastest-growing economy.

Shah further said today India has strong macro-economic fundamentals, it is the fastest growing economy and has reduced the fiscal deficit from 5 per cent of GDP to 3.3 per cent of GDP.

Shah said, "From 142 in 2014, India had achieved a World Bank Ease of Doing Business Rank of 77 in 2019."

He spoke of India's improved World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index of 71 to 58. He noted Prime Minister Modi's goal of making India one of the world's three largest economies by 2022, and that of making India a 5 trillion dollar economy.

He urged the graduates to take this era of transformation forward. He said that decisions like GST have proven that Prime Minister Modi takes decisions not to please people but to improve their lives and develop the nation.

He noted that while there were only 3000 startups from Independence to 2014, today there are more than 20,000 startups.

Speaking on the country's security, the Home Minister said, "After Uri, we carried out airstrike and showed the world that we support peace but won't tolerate any threat to our security. We carried out airstrikes after Pulwama and made it clear, no one can violate our borders."

Speaking about the abrogation of Article 370, Shah said, "Removing Articles 370 and 35A was a big challenge and Prime Minister Narendra Modi came for the second term and made the decision to end article 370 to make Kashmir an integral part of India."

"I have confidence that Kashmir which was away from development and there was joblessness, poverty, poor health conditions but in coming days there will be industry, tourism, education, health services and jobs for youth in the valley," the Union Home Minister said.

In a lesson to students present at the convocation, Shah said that his advice to them is that they should always aim high. The Union Minister asked every student present there to take a 'Sankalp' (aim) for the good of the country on the occasion of 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi this year on October 2.