Bhubaneswar: “I came to Odisha for the first time in 1995 when I setup Infosys here and have seen the remarkable progress of the State in the last 20 years. Odisha has a very good set of bureaucrats, a stable Government and progressive Chief Minister who is very futuristic,” TV Mohandas Pai said today at Bhubaneswar.
The Manipal Global Education Chairman said that Odisha’s human development indices have gone up tremendously. 22 percent of youths in the age group 18 to 23 go to college, health indices have gone up, the population growth rate has come to 2.05, below replacement and is going down, he said.
Addressing media persons here today, Pai said that it is remarkable to see that everybody is Odisha is getting house, water and access to healthcare. The key challenge for Odisha is to go from a natural resource-based State to a human capital based State.
“For state-based and human capital you have to invest in education and get high-quality universities. You have to invest in technology and give people the power of digitalisation which will give them exposure and opportunities. I am very optimistic that in eastern India, Odisha will be the role model,” he added.
Speaking about the growth of Indian economy, Pai said that by 2030 India is going to be a 10 trillion dollar economy. “It is a very simple mathematical model – grow at 8 percent, 4 percent inflation, 12 percent nominal growth for 6 years, rupee going upto 75 from 72 you go to 5 trillion. But this year has been a bad year, the GDP will grow by only 5 percent, may be the inflation will be 3 percent, next year hopefully we will grow and the year after that we will climb up.”
“India suffered this year because of liquidity. After the ILFS crisis, liquidity came down, bank lending was not there, 40 percent of consumer lending was by NBFCs, and because of ILFS, NBFCs were not getting enough money. That’s why auto purchases came down, real estate came down, housing came down. I think we have to recover from that,” he added.
Pai said that now the RBI has pumped money into the system. Banks are still not lending, so there is surplus liquidity. So am optimistic and technology will play a great role. So if we carry on that momentum, by 2030 we can be 10 trillion dollar economy,” Pai added.
