India's GDP Growth Will be 8% in 2016-17

India is expected to remain the fastest growing large economy of the world. It is likely to register a GDP growth of around 8% in 2016-17, thanks to the expected normal monsoons, positive global investor sentiments, high FDI inflows, and low interest rates, said Dr Naushad Forbes, President of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Addressing a press conference here today, Dr Forbes said that the agriculture sector is expected to grow at 3%, while the industry and services are expected to grow at the rate of 8.2% and 9.8% respectively.

Talking about CII's new initiatives for 2016-17, Dr Forbes said CII has taken initiatives to establish PPP Start-up Centers in the States - a new model institution for end-to-end incubation of potential entrepreneurs to build future business houses generating large scale employments. This incubation program will promote non-IT and rural entrepreneurship.

Unveiling CII's theme for 2016-17 of 'Building National Competitiveness', Dr Forbes said that to build national competitiveness, CII has laid emphasis on six key areas: human development, corporate integrity & good citizenship, ease of doing business, innovation & technical capability, sustainability and global integration.

CII has also identified six manufacturing sectors & 26 sub-sectors in which India can be number one or two in the world. They are: automotives, aerospace & defence, engineering, cement & steel, chemicals & pharma and ICTE. CII will soon release a strategic roadmap for these sectors.

CII is launching 10 pilot projects to scientifically manage municipal solid waste on a "People-Public-Private-Partnership" mode. CII member-companies will invest in designing, developing, implementing and managing comprehensive, sustainable, scalable end-to-end waste management solutions. This project will be scaled-up to 500 towns after the successful implementation of the 10 city-pilot projects.

CII will launch WATSCAN, an advanced tool for water resources evaluation and management at the watershed level. This tool has been developed by CII to identify water generation, accumulation and losses in geographical areas. CII will apply WATSCAN in 50 districts in 10 drought-prone states over the next five years. CII will take up and apply WATSCAN in 4 districts of Telangana.

CII is launching Groundwater-Energy-Farmer Income programme to stabilise farmer incomes and resource, by incentivizing farmers to save water through energy savings. The programme envisages the adoption of various water-energy saving measures by farmers, through which they can save energy (compared to the baseline usage) and sell back to the utility and in turn get compensated through direct transfers.

CII is also working on Waste to Worth, a solid waste management project in ten cities, under the Swachh Bharat initiative. Under Standup India, CII will escalate work on Affirmative Action with Dalit Chamber of Commerce and Industry on education and vendor opportunities.

Talking about the legislative reforms, Dr Forbes said that there is a need to bring in a political consensus to ensure early passage of Constitution Amendment Bill for the implementation of GST.

He urged the states to amend labour laws following the model set by Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, and Gujarat. He also emphasized the need for other Indian states to emulate Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan in introducing land reforms.

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