India may have to wait a century to become developed nation

India may be aiming to become a developed nation by 2020, but a UN body feels the country would have to wait for another century to achieve that status.

The UN Development Programme's Human Development Report (HDR) 2005 has said that as per the 2000-05 growth trends, "it will still take India until 2106 to catch up with high-income countries."

High growth in India has been one of the most powerful forces for convergence between rich and poor countries, the report said, but adding that it might still have to wait for another 100 years to become fully developed.

For other countries and regions, convergence prospects are even more limited, it said.

"Were high-income countries to stop growing today and Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa to continue on their current growth trajectories, it would take Latin America until 2177 and Africa until 2236 to catch up," the report said.

Most developing regions are falling behind, not catching up with the rich countries, it said.

The report, however, remarked that with incomes growing rapidly in China and (less spectacularly) in India than in high-income countries over the past two decades, the average gap has been closing in relative terms.

"This reverses a trend towards increased global inequality that started in the 1820s and continued until 1992," the annual report said.

First Published: Sep 14, 2005 11:50 IST