India no longer needs big ticket reforms but small ones to drive growth: CEA

New Delhi: India no longer needs big ticket reforms but small and basic ones to drive the growth forward, Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran said on Monday. Addressing the media after the Economic Survey 2023-24 presented in Parliament, Nageswaran said there is a need to pursue all possible approaches without any ideological orientation. "In terms of the kind of reforms that we need to do, it is no longer big-ticket reforms that dominate your front pages but more about grunt works. It is more about nuts and bolts of the government. It is more about plumbing of governance that needs to get right in order to drive growth forward," he said. "The structural reforms undertaken by the government of India over the course of the last decade have put the economy firmly on a growth path, thanks to which India is soon set to become the third largest economy in the world, following the US and China," he said in the Economic Survey.

In its April 2024 World Economic Outlook, the IMF has raised India's growth forecast for 2024-25 to 6.8 per cent from 6.5 per cent on the back of strong domestic demand and a rising working-age population, making India the fastest-growing G20 economy, he said. India has graduated from being a low-income country to a low-middle-income country, he added. As it journeys further towards middle and upper middle-income status, aspirations of the people keep rising, the survey said, adding that satisfaction with past progress fades away from memory quickly, and newer expectations take their place.

The measurement of achievements in the present against rising aspirations leaves society appear restless and discontented, it added. On corporate investment, it said, the government capex has also begun to crowd in private investment. Additionally, the government continues to disburse grants-in-aid for the creation of capital assets to states, thereby, incentivising them to increase their productive spending. At this juncture, it is important to note that while it remains the government's responsibility to facilitate the development of infrastructure and address logistical challenges, it is incumbent upon the private sector to take forward the momentum in capital formation on its own and in partnership with the government. Between FY19 and FY23, the share of private non-financial corporations in overall Gross Fixed Capital Formation (GFCF) increased only by 0.8 percentage points from 34.1 per cent to 34.9 per cent.