South India continues to lead India’s Growth Story, Performs best when in competition: Mr Amitabh Kant
South India’s Private Sector can play a larger role in investing in sunrise sectors
9 June 2023. “The world order is changing. India’s growth story should increase from the current 7 % to atleast 10% resulting in an overall increase in the per capita income. The compounding rate is so powerful that if we grow at 9%, our per capita income will be $20,000 and if it is 10% it would be an astounding $30,000. This translates to every Indian becoming very rich which is definitely possible as other countries like Japan, Taiwan and Korea have done. For this growth to be achieved, I believe every State should be champions. We need 10 to 12 states to grow at 10% plus to enable other states to also grow. The Southern states have to play a key and critical role as they are the best in competition,” said Mr Amitabh Kant, G20 Sherpa of India at the Interactive Session organized as part of CII Southern Regional Council Meeting in Chennai today.
To further substantiate the role of the southern states, he pointed out, “Every index that we have undertaken, be it health, education tourism, nutrition etc, it is the southern states have always stood in the Number One position. India’s growth story has to be driven by the southern region and especially the private sector. Every state has to now become the easiest place of doing business to allow the private sector to invest and grow”.
“South of India is the key to India’s growth story. We look forward to working with you and implement your suggestions,” he added.
“We need to fire on all cylinders be it in the Manufacturing, Urbanization, Healthcare, Agriculture, and Services. It is projected in the next 5 decades, there would be over 500 million people living in urban areas. It means every minute 30 Indians are moving from the rural to the urban areas. What is currently happening is unplanned urbanization whereas, one should look at a well-planned urbanization. This is a huge opportunity for the private sector to be a part of the new and well-planned cities,” he added.
Answering queries posed by Industry leaders, Mr Kant said, “Sunrise sectors are the areas of growth be it electric mobility, battery storage, green hydrogen are all emerging areas of growth. India needs to embrace these sectors and build size and scale. The ability to be a global champion is only possible when there is a size and scale of manufacturing of these areas. We need to bring down cost of production and establish a robust of global value chain. India must further develop the skills, ability to manufacture, improve logistics, and the ability to turnaround ports to make India a truly global leader”.
Promising to look into the delays that many MSMEs are finding it difficult to obtain licenses and plan approvals affecting the MSMEs largely, Mr Kant said, “The very point of introducing the Ease of Doing Business is to remove these very hurdles that have been there for long. The objective of the ranking that we had introduced at the district and state level is to make the public aware of the progress and if there is a delay, the state should be made aware of it and also be held answerable”.
On the MSME growth story, he said, “We cannot grow the MSME sectors if we don’t have large organizations being established in India. We need to create thousands of large organizations to compete globally and to support them, we need hundreds of thousands of MSMEs to be established,” he answered.
Answering a query on the energy and imports of fossil fuel, he said, “India currently imports $200 billion of fossil fuel. We can reduce this import bill by investing in green hydrogen and also be the biggest producer and exporter of green hydrogen in the coming years”.
The CII Southern Regional Council Meeting was attended by over 70 leading CEOs and captains of Industry from 6 Southern States. Prominent CII members participated at the meeting included; Mr Kamal Bali, Chairman, CII Southern Region & President & Managing Director, Volvo Group India Pvt Ltd; Ms Mallika Srinivasan, Chairman & Managing Director, TAFE Ltd; Dr Lakshmi Venu, Managing Director, Sundaram-Clayton Ltd; Dr R Nandini, Deputy Chairperson, CII Southern Region & Managing Director, Chandra Textiles Pvt Ltd; Mr B Santhanam, Past Chairman, CII Southern Region & CEO – APAC & India Region & Chairman, Saint-Gobain India Pvt Ltd; Mr Navas Meeran, Past Chairman, CII Southern Region & CEO, Eastern Condiments Pvt Ltd; Ms Suchitra K Ella, Immediate Past Chairperson & Co-Founder & Managing Director, Bharat Biotech International Ltd; Mr Shankar Vanavarayar, Chairman, CII Tamil Nadu State Council & Executive Director, ABT Industries Ltd; Mr Srivats Ram, Vice Chairman, CII Tamil Nadu & Managing Director, Wheels India Ltd among others.