Simple ideas to transform India

India is currently the largest democracy and one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. The entire world is keeping a close watch on our country as almost one billion people will cast their votes to elect a government that will be entrusted with the duties of taking the country forward, and making India an even more powerful nation in the next five years.
 
The average age of India’s population today is 25 years and the country is known for its hard working and intellectual workforce. However, with escalating unemployment, many people, especially talented youngsters, are heading overseas for job opportunities.
 
Such brain drain needs to be curtailed and citizens need to be encouraged to choose careers most suitable to them. They should be provided with platforms to succeed in careers that divert them from mainstream jobs. We can take a cue from the US with its Liberal Arts universities helping about 35 per cent of the population to explore other career opportunities. This broadens the student’s perspective and will lead them to a totally new career focus like paining, art, theatre, sports, and so on. Alternative career options should be encouraged through prestigious social recognition by parents and society at large.

Illustration: Binay Sinha

The growth of a start-up culture is in the right direction. The government has done a fabulous job of creating an environment conducive for start-ups. Financial institutions all over the world are looking at optimum ways to deploy funds, and the most popular one is micro finance. Providing loans of up to ~2 lakh will provide the much-needed impetus to the common man with an Aadhaar card. They will be encouraged to come up with thousands of new ideas to deploy that money. They will become entrepreneurs and have an independent livelihood, and going forward, will create jobs instead of seeking jobs. Data clearly shows that the least bad debts arise from micro finance.
 
Public sector enterprises, including state-owned banks, are the backbone of India. Empowering these PSUs and PSBs and giving them a free hand to operate and take decisions will help generate employment and speed up development. These need to be provided with global funds, independent boards and minimum interference in decision making. This will raise their performance manifold and create a huge number of jobs.
 
India has around 650 districts which have very effective district collectors, who can be honed as business development managers in their areas, whether it is agriculture, sport, mining, education or tourism. They can develop their strategy and have the final authority once the policy decisions have been taken by the government. The responsibility will lie on them as the buck will stop with them. This structure will surely transform the country.
 
Traditionally, India has always been an agrarian nation with agriculture being the backbone of the economy. Massive strides have been taken on the agricultural front to make India self-sufficient in our food requirements. India is a large country which has been blessed with rich resources both over the ground as well as underground. To finance and monetarily support India’s growing welfare and developmental spending, the nation needs to look “underground” towards its huge but yet untapped mineral and oil and gas resources. These yet-to-be-tapped natural resources could be tapped by PSUs or private participants and the funds thereby generated be used for various purposes.
 
The government needs to act strongly on the auction of raw materials for the aluminium and steel industry. India is facing a surge in import bills through imports of aluminium and iron ore, hurting the economy significantly. It has surplus capacity yet it imports over 50 per cent scrap and primary aluminium, losing $3.5 billion per annum and lakhs of jobs to other countries. A uniform import duty of 10 per cent on both scrap and primary aluminium will encourage the domestic industry and avoid dumping.
 
Encouragement to explore and produce natural resources in India will lead to greater self-reliance. Natural resources require processing, which will help create thousands of SMEs who will create quality products and millions of jobs. Self-reliance will also help save billions of dollars in imports, which can be ploughed back into social development.
 
Finally, India needs to build upon its 5000-year-old history, rich culture, monuments, museums, royal palaces, coastline, hills, deserts and places of tourist interest. These could be handled by professionals who will provide world-class maintenance, making them attractive for the global and Indian tourist. This will encourage tourism immensely and create massive job opportunities in the tourism sector. 
 
I am sure political parties will include and address these through their manifestos for the forthcoming elections, as these are quite relevant for the nation’s development. Once implemented, these ideas will lead to job creation and poverty alleviation, and will take India a step closer to the super power that it aspires to become.
  The writer is Executive Chairman, Vedanta Resources