India has shown to the world that it can grow irrespective of the government in power, but there is an urgent need to ensure all-inclusive economic expansion by addressing the twin problem of unemployment and farmers’ distress, senior Congress leader Kamal Nath said on Wednesday.
Addressing a session on emerging market outlook here at the WEF Annual Meeting, Nath said India is heading towards becoming the world’s second largest economy but that is happening because of lot many factors.
“India grows irrespective of the government policies and is driven by its tremendously aspirational young generation,” the Chief Minister of one of the India’s largest state Madhya Pradesh said.
He, however, cautioned that there is huge unemployment and that coupled with issues faced by farmers are the biggest problems faced by India.
Any policy decision should focus on these issues to unlock India’s huge growth potential, Nath who had held various ministerial positions at the central government said.
On importance of sustainable economic growth and why it is not a political issue in India, Nath said, it was indeed a political issue in the country and India was certainly addressing issues like environment.
Nath said that there is a need to look at the “distributed justice” in a new way.
“There is a global disorder in all facets, whether it’s economy or politics and all of this needs to be looked at in a holistic manner. Unless that is done, this disparity will further increase,” he said.
Problems in India and for Indian farmers are different from what is the problem of inequality in the US and therefore the solutions would need to be different, he said.
Nath noted that it’s very important that rule based trading systems remain in place for the global trade to happen.
“Nowadays bilateral trade deals are happening a lot, raising questions about multilateral frameworks,” said Nath who also served as a union commerce minister in the past.
He added that India has always supported rules based trade systems and it will fully support it. But one must understand that free trade should also mean fair trade.
