Need to focus beyond flagship programmes, says Adhia

Stressing the need to focus beyond flagship programmes, Financial Services Secretary Hasmukh Adhia today said efficiency in the agriculture and services should also be improved.
"Unfortunately, the intelligentsia and the media focus too much on the big things. But we need to focus on efficiency and improvement beyond manufacturing as well if we were to take the growth to every household," Adhia said at an Exim Bank event here.
"In order to do so, we will have to focus on agriculture and services," he said, adding that manufacturing contributes only 14 per cent to the GDP.
It can be noted that the "Make in India" campaign, under which the government is gunning to increase the growth in manufacturing, is among the flagship programmes and has been generating a widespread interest.

Adhia said that beyond improving efficiencies, other challenges "which confront us are skilling the population to reap the demographic dividend and creating the institutional architecture for ease of doing business in India."
"We have inherent strengths like the demographics, domestic demand and democracy which will help the country achieve a higher growth trajectory," he said, adding that the country has an important role to play in the world economic order and it will grow sooner.

On importance of micro enterprises, he said there are about 5.7 crore such companies.
However, the average borrowing of such enterprises from the formal financial channels is only Rs 17,000 and the government is targeting to increase it further through initiatives like the MUDRA Bank, he said.

The government is committed to inclusive growth, Adhia said, adding it is now replicating the success of the 'Jan Dhan Yojana' in insurance by offering accident and life cover at low premiums.
He stressed this will not involve any subsidy or budgetary support.