With population of 1.4 billion, blessed with geographical spread, 52% arable land and a young population being 65% India has the world's largest youth population is an opportunity that needs focus and clarity, converged and consistent policies and facilitating actions by the Government in power to optimise this advantage. The moot question is are you optimising this potential or may a move lead to self-goal and thus in trap of non-inclusive growth model with statistics of hunger index, poverty and unemployment disturbing. Let us look at some major sectors that are providing sustainable employment and contributing to the GDP.
Agriculture significant sector with nearly 154 million hectares of arable land and has been major contributor to India becoming self-sufficient in food. 46% of population livelihood comes from agriculture and contributes nearly 18% to the GDP, However, the productivity is still very low as per international norms. Many a time it is blamed for small holdings and attempts in policy are more on corporatisation than on focus on increasing productivity. China with half the farm size and much less use of fertilisers the productivity is three times making agriculture as sustainable means of good income source. The related is food processing in hinterland to avoid wastage that is 500 million tonnes annually and crop residues causing pollution. Another home food wastage is to a tune of 74 million tonnes annually enough to feed millions. Policies must be enhanced for productivity for each farm by providing drip irrigation, technical handholding, preserving the output and thus reducing the wastage. The fluctuating permission for exports and low facility of cold storage and food preservation leads to farmers navigating these uncertainties. The focus on other allies like floriculture, sericulture, horticulture and pisciculture needs similar approaches. The allowance of imports without quality control adversely hits cotton and silk productions. The chain of cold storage and food processing units is the key. How much support goes to these can best be indicated by numbers in crops and food wastage. Irony is on other hand Global Hunger Index (GHI) is indicating high child wasting to 18,7%, stunting to 32.9% puts India to 102nd rank. Though child mortality has reduced significantly but nutrition issues persist. The need therefore is to look for a shift from free distribution of food grains to that of enhancing ability to process food, reducing wastage and thus ensuring producers get better return and children can be targeted to get the best nutrition.
It would have been a golden opportunity for India to go ahead to be an inclusive, strong economy and be a leader in creating export economy. The capability is there but then the policies must be contributor, facilitator and more so problem solver than problem creator, the question is are we more on self-goal than tiny steps to achieve the same. What Satish Jha says, ‘webs of its own weaving”. Arvind Subramanian and Devesh Kapur calling it ‘policy have been saboteurs of progress.” Is it not self-goal, how can priorities be that are not taking appropriate decisions to attain the ambitious objectives.
{{/usCountry}}It would have been a golden opportunity for India to go ahead to be an inclusive, strong economy and be a leader in creating export economy. The capability is there but then the policies must be contributor, facilitator and more so problem solver than problem creator, the question is are we more on self-goal than tiny steps to achieve the same. What Satish Jha says, ‘webs of its own weaving”. Arvind Subramanian and Devesh Kapur calling it ‘policy have been saboteurs of progress.” Is it not self-goal, how can priorities be that are not taking appropriate decisions to attain the ambitious objectives.
{{/usCountry}}The slogans of Viksit Bharat by long timeline 2047 need specific benchmarks. Let us take issue of startups, the startups are small innovators that they make into a business model. This start up gives feed for large-scale innovations in defense and other sectors. Let us take case of gaming, that had potential of India becoming a hub. The innovation of multiple remote players, strategising, targeting could have led India for coming with multiple high-level software, but the GST enhancement from retrospective effect and then total ban on money games led to shift of this innovation to other friendly policy countries and in India it has moved to gray areas. The policy must be to make people aware of addiction and not ban. Alcohol and smoking are not banned but do have statutory warnings and better advertising policies. Similar approach would have mattered and contributed to innovations.
Same applies to digital gold saving and crypto the virtual digital assets, being shy of regulating has not stopped growth of people’s preference in same. Policies need to regulate to prevent fly by night operators by ensuring better hedging in digital gold operators and listing virtual digital asset as asset class. India's gold and silver import status involves high demand, recent surges in value despite volume drops (due to high global prices), and government restrictions on finished jewelry to curb misuse of FTAs, while reducing duties on bullion to encourage legal imports, with silver facing specific restrictions until March 2026. It would be best to allow digital gold by hedging existing gold reserves. The investment by digital route for gold is estimated to be 12 tonnes. SEBI’s November 2025 advisory that digital gold products are neither notified as securities nor regulated as commodity derivatives. This means investors bear counterpart and operational risk. The growing citizens preference needs regulatory ring-fencing besides option of ETFs (Gold Exchange Traded Funds).
India needs to focus on MSMEs by resolving even their tinniest of issues to make sector as lead and really reach contributing to 45-50% of GDP to mere 30% that is answered to address the unemployment rate fluctuating between 4.5 to 7%.
Do we have luxury to waste our energy on unrelated factors like dividing societies and non-productive expenditure. No, need is therefore very clear for drawing board to focus only on optimising productivity, quality and thus employment in sustainable manner in agriculture and MSME sectors with congruent infrastructure. India cannot have majority of population reduced to only subsistence existence (80% getting free food grains) but to be skilled enough to graduate to sustainable and then to surplus economy in coming five years. The self-goals are the major culprit by frequent somersaults in policy reducing credibility than any external factors.
This article is authored by Aruna Sharma, development economist and retd secretary, Government of India, New Delhi.