India needs to make all efforts to reach ‘double digit’ growth and should not treat 7 per cent expansion as the ‘new normal’, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) member Shamika Ravi said on Friday.

Ravi also refuted the contention of her EAC-PM colleague Rathin Roy that India could fall into the middle income trap — a term used by the World Bank to refer to nations that get stuck at a middle level of economic development as they attempt to grow rich.

“But emphasis now needs to be on how do we get back with the vision to that double-digit growth. The new normal of 7 per cent or perhaps weakening further because of the global trends cannot be the new normal for a country with per capita income that we do have,” Ravi said at event organised by Brookings India.

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) had in February revised downwards the growth estimate for 2018-19 fiscal from 7.2 per cent to 7 per cent — the lowest in five years.

Aspire for growth

Ravi also asserted that there needs to be reinforcement of mechanisms through which India can continue to aspire for double-digit growth. She maintained that India is unlikely to fall into the middle income trap. “I don’t think India can afford that (middle income trap). I don’t think India is going to fall into the middle income trap like Brazil or South Africa,” the EAC-PM member opined.

Recently, EAC-PM member Rathin Roy had said the Indian economy is heading for a structural slowdown.

Ravi also pointed out that India should not lose fiscal discipline which it maintained during the last five years of the Narendra Modi government.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW