Strategic Roadmap for Revitalizing Indian Economy Growth

India has fostered a dynamic economic growth environment in the last five years with the implementation of different commendable economic reforms. India has significantly represented in the world economic system. At this juncture, due to the Pandemic, Novel Coronavirus efforts are to be tripled and restructured to sustain the higher growth economic trajectory and insulating the economy from world headwinds for being ahead of the game by focussing on the following key drivers of economic growth.

  1. Recreating Grass-root level jobs: Agriculture is the primary source of livelihood for about 58% of India’s population. Due to the unprecedented times, the migrant workers are all going back to their roots. It is a massive opportunity for the Government of India (GOI) and Industry players to recreate the grass-root level jobs. There is a huge opportunity for the development of rural India and enabling the farmers and the workers. They went out to earn a livelihood for providing towards their family’s subsistence and children’s education. Now that they are gone back, the GOI and Industry should facilitate them with funds, programs, and technology to grow to produce for our consumption instead of importing other quality products and services from the second world countries too. The farmers should be enabled with the latest techniques of growing crops. They should be educated on the advanced methodologies, which will enable them to adopt a wide range of hybrid techniques for benefitting society at large and also save the environment through sustainable goals. This is achievable by building a Public-Private Partnership (PPE). Organizations like Tech-Mahindra and others are big-time focussed in Agritech with an aim to boost innovation and entrepreneurship in agriculture and to empower our rural India to make them self-sufficient. India is expected to achieve the ambitious goal of tripling farm income by 2022. The agriculture sector in India anticipated generating better momentum in the next few years due to increased investments in Agritech, Agricultural infrastructures such as irrigation facilities, rainwater harvesting, storage, warehousing, electrification, road connectivity, and telecommunication. 
  1. India possesses the second-largest internet user base in the world after China. Telephones have percolated to the grassroots levels, but internet access is yet to make a significant cover in rural India, which I see the development rapidly coming soon than ever before. The internet will revolutionize farming in many ways. The strategies and roadmap are being finalized for 5G in India, which promises faster connectivity, besides becoming the backbone for the Internet of Things (IoT). This technological advancement will be used for tracking livestock movement via GPS sensors and monitoring water-levels in the fields. The third-party application that uses the internet, like WhatsApp, FaceTime, Google Meet, etc. are connecting people from different across the globe. These platforms have become part of the critical communication infrastructure used for video conferencing for imparting knowledge to educate the farmers about new farming practices that they can adopt. India has developed apps such as SmartGoan, and Kisan Suvidhaa are used for rural development and awareness. IoT enables connected devices to communicate with other devices to take actions autonomously. Thus, using data analytics to remotely control farming activities with the precision of computer algorithms or with artificial intelligence which will be next wave. IoT and AI will be used for water resource management, sustainable land, disaster management, food security, and public health and safety. Going-forward, basic literacy and technical awareness are pre-requisites for the farmers to make full use of the internet for their benefit. Rural India is an untapped market with the highest returns for both the Industry and farmers. The world is now heading back to its roots and looking forward to the paradigm shift and disruption. 

Make in India: The ‘Make in India’ initiative was launched in 2014 with the objective of promoting India as an important investment destination and a global hub for design, manufacturing and innovation. The GOI has identified sectors that have the potential to be global leaders, drive double-digit growth in manufacturing and generate significant employment opportunities. Since its launch, several measures have been taken to create a conducive environment for the development of modern and high-tech efficient infrastructure, investments, opening up new sectors for foreign direct investments (FDIs) and forging a strong partnership between industry and the Government. 

In the last few years, I have experienced a steep and ever-growing demand for goods and services across different market segments. This shift was mainly due to the low-cost products being available from China. The low-cost factor gave rise to increasing demand and consumptions of products and services at an unimaginable scale. Imports became the best option for Profit Mongers. Every business wanted to profit from the thriving market opportunity of making huge profits. Due to which I didn’t see the goal of ‘Make in India’ evolve. Indian customer mind-set of wanting it ‘Cheap’ made Chinese products penetrate the entire world besides India until the blow by the Pandemic. A sudden brake to stop, rethink and restructure. 

India, as a country, is known for its rich and diverse homegrown produce both raw materials and finished goods. Let me remind you what has transformed and how we need to revitalize. Firstly, let us understand what India’s top ten imports are, and I will discuss in detail about how the Industries should start leveraging the opportunity to Make-in-India using innovative methods to become self-sustaining. 

According to the International Trade Centre, “India imported US$480 billion worth of goods from around the globe in 2019, up by 22.8% since 2015 but down by -5.7% from 2018 to 2019.”

  1. Mineral fuels including Oil & Gas: US$153.5 billion (32% of total imports)
  2. Gems, precious metals: $60 billion (12.5%)
  3. Electrical machinery, equipment: $50.4 billion (10.5%)
  4. Machinery including computers: $44.1 billion (9.2%)
  5. Organic chemicals: $20.5 billion (4.3%)
  6. Plastics, plastic articles: $14.6 billion (3.1%)
  7. Iron, steel: $11.6 billion (2.4%)
  8. Animal/vegetable fats, oils, waxes: $9.6 billion (2%)
  9. Optical, technical, medical apparatus: $9.5 billion (2%)
  10. Fertilizers: $7.3 billion (1.5%)

India’s top 10 imports accounted for about four-fifths (79.4%) of the overall value of its product purchases from other countries. Imported fertilizers posted the fastest increase in value among India’s top 10 import categories, up 23.3% from 2018 to 2019. The other top category to gain was machinery, including computers via a 1.6% improvement. 

Mineral Fuels, including Oil: Indian purchases of petroleum oil residues went up by 19.9%, and processed petroleum oils by 11.8% grew from 2018 to 2019. These percentage gains within parenthesis clearly show where the strongest demand lies for different types of imports related to mineral fuels among Indian businesses and consumers. The Petroleum Conservation Research Association of India (PCRA) a national agency of Government of India engaged in promoting conservation of petroleum products and energy efficiency in various sectors of the economy. It helps the Government in proposing policies and strategies for petroleum conservation, aimed at reducing excessive dependence of the country on oil requirement. However, despite the effort and measures taken by the GOI, I see that we have a long way ahead of us in significantly reducing the use of petroleum products and to finding alternatives so that we can ultimately move away from it. Even though there are measures put in place I firmly believe that the only way to stop the import of mineral fuels and crude oil if we can focus on the following and the Coronavirus pandemic has made this a possible more than ever before:

  1. Conserve Energy: Fuel conservation is a fundamental concept that we all need to understand to protect and save our environment. Fossil fuels like coal, petrol, and diesel take millions of years to form and cannot be renewed. It is a detailed chemical process, and they are not unlimited on Earth. Petroleum products include transportation fuels, fuel oils for heating and electricity generation, asphalt and road oil, and feedstocks for making the chemicals, plastics, and synthetic materials that are in nearly everything we use. Over 6000 items are manufactured from the Petroleum waste by-products, which we consume in some form or the other in our daily lives. The transport, industry, domestic/ household and agriculture are four major sectors which consume the bulk of petroleum. Of which the transportation sector is one of the largest consumers of petroleum products, mainly petrol and high-speed diesel which are non-renewable resources that cannot be recycled or reused. 

These are wasteful and cause pollution that is harmful to the humankind. The paradigm shift in the way how we live and work today has transformed and thanks to the Pandemic. Every household in the middle-income group to super-rich class owns a minimum number of two vehicles. The new normal will eliminate how we function both in our personal and professional world. The ‘New Normal’ is the ‘Virtual Reality,’ we don’t have to travel to work every day. This itself cuts down a significant amount of fuel consumption. The overall travel be it by air, road, or water will be reduced drastically, which is saving fuel consumption and in turn a significant reduction in the pollution and clean environment. Staying indoors also has reduced excess consumption of products and services, which caused massive harm to the environment and nature. On the other hand, this shift has led to the rejuvenation and conservation of mother nature overall. We all should use only natural and organic products and strictly stop using and buying anything that is processed or chemical-based. Go back to your roots and follow tradition.

  1. Alternate Energy: We have entered an era where there are more than a dozen alternative fuels that currently under development or in production to power the vehicles of the future, and present too. Today, it has become the need to of the hour to find alternatives for reducing the use of any fossil fuels. Instead, with the technological advancements, this world is shifting gears and going back to its roots. Some of the alternatives to fuel are as follows:

a. Biodiesel: Biodiesel is a renewable fuel which is produced from animal fats, vegetable oils, or recycled restaurant grease. Biodiesel is safe and burns much more cleanly. 

b. Electric Vehicles: Electric vehicles have been around now for a while. It is struggling to enter the mass market. Many hybrid vehicles are now using electricity to reduce fuel consumption and cost of the fuel too. While power grids might be available in the west, the charging stations for these vehicles remains limited, which is being addressed with new developments such as million-mile battery by Tesla who is ahead of the game and will give the world a significant break-through. Besides, many auto-manufacturers are also shifting to ‘Electric Vehicles.’ Even luxury car brands such aa Rolls-Royce has unveiled the world’s first ‘electrified,’ Rolls-Royce classic car, a 1961 Phantom V, designed to be driven every day with no concession to range anxiety as it gets a 120KWH battery that ensures a range of over 300 miles. Besides, the aviation industry is innovating on building hybrid-engines and electrification. 

c. Hydrogen Gas: Hydrogen has virtually no greenhouse gas emissions. Power is generated in a hydrogen fuel cell, which will only emit water vapour and warm air. The difficulty is that hydrogen fuel must be extracted from hydrocarbons, water, or other organic matter. The process of doing this involves either natural gas or high levels of energy which comes from power plants. Storing hydrogen is a challenge since it requires high pressure, low temperatures, or chemical process to be stored compactly—an alternative for the aviation industry.

d. Natural Gas: Natural Gas is already widely used for several purposes around the world. It is an odourless mixture of hydrocarbons, most of which is methane. Natural gas is considered a fossil fuel, but an alternative known as renewable natural gas does exist. Biomethane is produced from waste, either from livestock or even landfills through a process called anaerobic digestion. In this series of processes, microorganisms break down biodegradable material. A significant advantage to renewable natural gas is that it is chemically identical to its fossil fuel brother, meaning the existing infrastructure is perfectly useable.

  1. Sustainable or Green Energy: Sustainable or Green energy is the energy that powers the needs of the current generation but sustains the ability to meet those of future generations. Green energy comes from natural sources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, plants, algae and geothermal heat. Sustainable or Green energy is part of the planet’s structure which implies it is continuously replenished via natural means, and it cannot run out. 

Green energy, however, utilizes energy sources that are readily available all over the world, including in rural and remote areas that don’t otherwise have access to electricity. Advances in renewable energy technologies have lowered the cost of solar panels, wind turbines and other sources of green energy, placing the ability to produce electricity in the hands of the people rather than those of oil, gas, coal and utility companies. Green energy can replace fossil fuels in all major areas of use including electricity, water and space heating and fuel for motor vehicles. Research into renewable, non-polluting energy sources is advancing at such a fast pace, it’s hard to keep track of the many types of green energy that are now in development. Following are the key types of common green energy sources:

a. Solar Power: Sunlight is one of the primary renewable sources of energy. To harness solar energy, several technologies are used to convert it into heat, light, or electricity.  

  • Photovoltaic systems are used to convert sunlight into electricity.
  • Solar water heating system is used to heat buildings.
  • Mirrored dishes help to boil water in conventional steam systems to generate electricity.

In commercial buildings, solar energy is used to promote processes such as heating, cooling, and ventilation. Homeowners should take complete advantage of solar power by installing solar systems that help heat water, run appliances, and light their premises. Solar technologies have become inexpensive enough to power everything from small hand-held gadgets to entire neighbourhoods.

b. Wind Power: Wind is considered part of the solar power because it comes from uneven heating and cooling of the atmosphere resulting in winds. Regular rotation of the Earth also causes it. To harness wind power, green power companies use a wind turbine that rotates generators to generate electricity. Today, there are many commercial grade wind-power developing systems designed to meet the energy requirements of different users. For example, a single wind turbine can be used to generate electricity for individual homes and small enterprises. To generate electricity on a large scale from wind power, companies and governments have to invest in large scale wind farms. These are multiple turbines installed in areas with strong winds to generate optimal electricity that is injected into national grids or used in a specific region. At the same time, it is being adopted across the globe we still need to make tremendous progress to make it a primary source. 

c. Geothermal Power: Geothermal energy is harnessed using heat generated from deep inside the Earth. The heat is sourced from heated rocks near the surface or steams of hot water from miles below the surface. The energy is harvested using geothermal power plants. These plants use the high pressure and temperature steam to run generators that produce electricity. On a smaller scale, geothermal energy can be used to heat manufacturing plants, offices or homes. 

d. Hydropower: It is also called hydroelectric power, hydropower is generated by the Earth’s water cycle, including evaporation, rainfall, tides and the force of water running through a dam. Hydropower depends on high precipitation levels to produce significant amounts of energy.

To summarise, India needs to cut its top ten major imports and focus on reducing its consumption by using alternate resources that are naturally available to us. Also, India needs to enable and empower its lost industry to produce or ‘Make in India’ by encouraging every citizen to support rural produce and protect our art, culture, and tradition. I will be sharing a series of articles on how we can look at innovating within different industry segments and become self-sustaining.