After a brief hiccup, India has been clocking some impressive numbers on the economic growth front. The citizens now seem to be assured of the economy of the country being on the right track after a decade of congress misrule when they overtook an 8+ GDP growth economy and plummeted it to sub 4 levels. The Narendra Modi government is working tirelessly towards the uplifting of Indian economy.
After a big jump in World Bank’s ease of doing business rankings, Positive word by IMF and a rating upgrade by Moody’s India has achieved another impressive milestone this year. India has climbed up 4 ranks according to the Legatum Global Prosperity Index 2017.
Among the 9 parameters of prosperity that were considered to rank the countries, India registered a big growth in 3 parameters viz. Governance, Economic Quality and Business environment. Owing to GST and other financial reforms, the business environment became more conducive. The changes in the bankruptcy law and the revised intellectual property rights furthered the growth. As noted earlier, India also jumped 30 places in the Ease of doing business rankings by World Bank which makes India a very favorable destination for global bigwigs to invest their money in.
Effective Governance has always been India’s Achilles’s Heel. A country as big as India, soaked in socialism, red-tapism and Babudom is bound to be a difficult test case for governance. And the fact that 50+ Years of Congress rule were synonymous with misrule, corruption, nepotism and general policy paralysis made governance all the more difficult. Current Prime Minister Narendra Modi rightly attacked Congress for mis-governance and made effective governance his key issue in his massively successful election campaigning of 2014. It was during the run up to the general elections of 2014 that PM Modi put forth the idea of Minimum Government and Maximum Governance. And he has been working tirelessly to turn his poll-pitch into a reality. The ‘Pradhanmantri Jan Dhan Yojana’ gave a major boost to the economic quality by inducting even the last Indian in the line into the mainstream economy of the country.
India has recorded the second biggest jump in Business environment after South Africa, according to the Global Prosperity Index 2017. As per the report, more Indians are satisfied with their standard of living and housing incomes. Schemes such as Startup India, Digital India, Mudra Bank and the ambitious Make in India contributed majorly in increasing India’s entrepreneurial strength.
Interestingly, China registered a decline in the area where India registered a growth due to less encouragement of competition, greater barriers to trade and falling primary school completion rate. It was ranked 90th. Calling China’s loss, India’s gain won’t be too farfetched. Pakistan, famous for exporting terrorism to India, has been ranked 137th on Global Prosperity Index as it performed poorly in almost every area especially in Personal Freedom, Safety, Security and Natural Environment. The report mentioned, “India has narrowed the gap on China to a quarter of what it was in 2012”. This shows the excellent governance and effective implementation of policies on the ground level to achieve the record success.
Modi Government’s two big experiments GST and Demonetization have started showing their awaited positive effects for the economy. While GST helped India’s weird and wildly varied taxes to be grouped under one umbrella and enhanced the quality of revenue utilization, demonetization proved to the world that India has stopped considering black money a way of life and that this Congress era malice is on its way out.
The Global Prosperity Index Rankings make it amply clear that the Modi government has been able to deliver its promises of Acche Din to the nation and is successfully leading India to reach greater heights.