National Conference on 5 Trillion $ Economy by SOM Day-1

On the eve of the Budget presentation by our honourable Finance Minister, Mrs. Nirmala Sitharaman, the School of Management, at IUU has organised a two day National Conference on the current topic occupying a lot of media attention.

$ Five Trillion, Emerging Indian Economy – A Road Map

Ms. Harleen Kaur, Assistant Professor, SoM welcomed the gathering. Prof. Gautam Sinha, Vice Chancellor, in his introductory remarks emphasized the role of youth in building a $ 5 trillion economy.Prof. Ravikesh Srivatsava, Pro Vice Chancellor and Conference Chair, delivered the welcome address and spoke of opportunities available in five key areas: Agriculture, Demand, Innovation, Bottom of the Pyramid, Employment generation and skill development.

Dr. Kalyani Rangarajan, Dean, School of Management, gave an overview of the Conference and gave a brief outline of possible government initiatives to stem the tide of slowdown in growth .

Prof. KK Raina, Vice Chancellor, DIT University graced the occasion with his presence.

The Chief Guest for the inaugural function was Dr. K C John, Managing Director, Agnity India, who has done the successful tightrope walking of balancing successful careers in the space of technology, Innovation, entrepreneurship and sustainable development. After a doctorate in Management from IIM, Ahmedabad, KC John worked on the sustainable development programmes at the World Bank and Ford Foundation. He has over the years advised and guided start-up founders in incubating and scaling new ideas.

Dr. John’s view point was that India needs to sustain a real GDP growth rate of 9 percent to achieve the aspirational goal of becoming a $5T economy by 2024 – 25. He emphasized the importance of policy reforms to unshackle MSMEs and private investment as a key driver of demand, creating capacity, increasing labour productivity, introducing new technology, and allowing creative destruction. This virtuous cycle would spur exports and lead to job creation.

Dr. John spoke of providing a digital platform for enabling data rich individuals to ride on the prosperity engine by leveraging the public digital goods – Digital Empowerment and Protection Architecture (DEPA).

Mr. Kumaraswamy, CFO, JK Paper, is an astute economic thinker combining his vast experience in multinationals with sound insight into the working of the economy from a practitioner’s point of view. His book, ‘Making Growth Happen in India’, published way back in 2014, talks of economic growth strategies for India.

Mr. Kumaraswamy in his keynote address, talked of a feasible real growth rate of 7.6 percent, after adjusting for inflation and currency depreciation, to achieve the US$5T goal in five years.

Some suggestions from him were:

1. Government to aim at 6 percent inflation

2. Target real interest rates and not nominal interest rates

3. Switch over to accrual accounting

4. Increase Debt/GDP ratio to 52.5 percent over three years

5. States to balance revenue deficit and cap debt/GDP at 20 percent

6. Subsidies to be restricted only to the bottom 30 percent and life essentials.

Some sources of growth identified by him were:

1. More of services rather than resource intensive western model

2. Affordable housing

3. Waste handling

4. River navigation and cleaning

5. Delicense more sectors, even including Defence

6. Education, Skill Development and Re-training

7. Revive real estate.

Some micro actions could be to switch over to organic farming, become part of the global value chain, and finally education beyond knowledge.

The post-lunch Technical Session was chaired by Dr. Devna Sharma, HoD, DAV PG College, with paper presentations on ‘Path to US $5T Economy – Guidelines’.

The Guest Speakers for the Day 2 are:

1. Dr. James Daniel Paul, Project Manager-Transaction Advisory Services, Ernest and Young LLP.

2. Dr. Parameshwar P Iyer, Former Chairman, IPTEL, IISC., Bengaluru.

This will be followed by Technical sessions covering Role of Banking, HR & Innovation and Marketing Aspects.

There will be summing up and valedictory function in the afternoon.