INDia vision2o2o

Our vision of India’s future should be both comprehensive and harmonious. It must encompass all the myriad aspects that constitute the life of the country and its people. It must balance and synthesise all the divergent views and forces that compete in the pursuit of self-fulfilment. It must be based on an objective assessment of facts and a realistic appraisal of possibilities, yet it must rise beyond the limitations of past trends, immediate preoccupations and pressing challenges to perceive the emerging opportunities and concealed potentials. Most of all, our vision of India’s future should serve to awaken in all of us a greater awareness of our cultural and spiritual strengths - which formed the bedrock of our past achievements and should form the foundation of our future accomplishments. Some of our traditions must change, but knowledge, in essence, is our greatest endowment. The vision should awaken in us an unswerving confidence in ourselves, a complete reliance on our own capacity as a nation and an unshakeable determination to realise our full potential. A true vision cannot be a static written statement. It must emerge as a living and dynamic reality in the minds and hearts of the people and their leaders.




This vision statement of India 2020 may not fulfill all these criteria to our full satisfaction, but it can serve as a useful starting point and foundation for contemplating future possibilities and our destiny as a nation. It can serve to indicate the broad lines of policy and strategy by which India can emerge as a far stronger, more prosperous and more equitable nation in the coming years. This document draws upon many ideas and proposals contained in more than thirty background papers presented to the Committee over the last two years, which have been presented in the main body.



The vast scope and complexity of the issues prevent us from doing full justice to them in this summary1 . This vision statement is neither a prediction of what will actually occur, nor simply a wish list of desirable but unattainable ends. Rather, it is a statement of what we believe is possible for our nation to achieve, provided we are able to fully mobilise all the available resources – human, organisational, technological and financial – generate the requisite will and make the required effort. In formulating our vision of the future India, it is important to see beyond the limits of the immediate past to rediscover the greatness that is India. Although the present Republic of India is a young developing nation, our people have a rich and illustrious history as one of the longest living civilisations in the world. In 1835, even Lord Macaulay, (the British historian and politician). had to admit before the British Parliament: “I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such caliber… the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage…..” Thus, it would be wrong to state that in 1947 India started to construct a modern nation from scratch. Rather, it began the process of rediscovering its rich cultural and spiritual values that had formed the foundation of India in the past. It is on this foundation that we seek to formulate our vision of India 2020.



An essential requirement for envisioning India’s future in the new century is to recognise

that the parameters which determine national development have changed in recent years and will change further in future. This will open up greater possibilities than ever before. A powerful set of catalytic forces is accelerating the speed of social change throughout the world. They include a rapid rise in levels of education, high rates of technological innovation and application, ever faster and cheaper communication that dissolves physical and social barriers both within countries and internationally, greater availability and easier access to information, and the further opening up of global markets. These trends are representative of a relative shift in the engines that drive development from manufacturing to the services sector and from capital resources to human and knowledge resources. Technology, organisation, information, education and productive skills will, therefore, play a critically decisive role in governing the future course of development.



The growing influence of these factors, acting on the foundation of India’s increasingly

dynamic and vibrant economic base, lend credence to the view that India can achieve and sustain higher than historical rates of economic growth in the coming decades. The compounded effect of achieving the targeted annual GDP growth rate of 8.5 to 9 per cent over the next 20 years would result in a quadrupling of the real per capita income and almost eliminating the percentage of Indians living below the poverty line. This will raise India's rank from around 11th today to 4th from the top in 2020 among 207 countries given in the World Development Report in terms of GDP. Further, in terms of per capita GDP measured in ppp India's rank will rise by a minimum of 53 ranks from the present 153 to 100. This will mean, India will move from a low income country to an upper middle income country. This is a very real possibility for us to seize upon and realise.



What will India be like 20 years from now? While in some areas we can confidently estimate quantitatively the outcome with a fair degree of accuracy, in some others we only know the broad direction. In still others we are unable to say with confidence the direction that future trends will take. We can only indicate what would be most desirable and signal the opportunities and obstacles that will arise along the way.



By 2020, the people of India will be more numerous, better educated, healthier and

more prosperous than at any time in our long history.



In spite of the declining fertility rates, falling infant mortality and increasing life expectancy will spur an increase of at least 300 million people. The result: Total population of India will exceed 1.3 billion in 2020. A marked slowdown in birth rates will leave the under-15 population at roughly the same size as it is today (i.e., increase by 0.2 per cent per annum). This means that the pressure for expansion of the educational system will come only from increasing enrolment and efforts to reduce drop-out rates. The population over 60 years of age will double from 60 to 120 million people (i.e., around 3.5 per cent per annum). This will necessitate the adoption of special measures to support this vulnerable group, which will include a high percentage of illiterates and who are especially susceptible to both malnutrition and health-related problems. Unequal rates of population and economic growth are likely to further aggravate regional disparities within the country.



Well before 2020, India will have the capacity to produce more than sufficient quantities of food to provide a healthy diet to its entire population and become a major food exporter. Even by maintaining the moderate rates of productivity growth achieved during the 1990s, the country will be able to meet the projected demand in all major food categories and generate a substantial surplus of food grains and dairy products. Rising productivity and rapid diversification into value-added crops could spur another Green Revolution in Indian agriculture.



Production of surplus food will not, however, ensure the eradication of under-nutrition. In

spite of enormous progress in the food production, nearly half the country’s population still suffers from chronic under-nutrition and malnutrition. The most vulnerable are children, women and the elderly among the lower income groups. Eradication of this scourge will require the generation of sufficient employment opportunities so that all households have the purchasing power needed for assured economic access to food. Employment or livelihood security is an essential and inseparable element of a comprehensive strategy for national food security. Conversely, food security is an essential requirement for raising the productivity of India’s workforce to international levels.



As population growth slows to replacement levels over the next two decades, India’s greatest challenge will be to provide employment opportunities for all job-seekers. The working age population will expand by about 45 per cent, spurring rapid growth of the labour force and the number of job-seekers. Major changes in economic policy and strategy will be needed to eliminate the current backlog of more than 34 million unemployed job-seekers and assure employment opportunities for all additions to the labour force. India needs to generate around 200 million additional employment opportunities over the next 20 years. At the same time, the total proportion of the workforce involved in agriculture is likely to decline from 56 per cent to 40 per cent or even lower, thus increasing the pressure for rapid multiplication of non-farm employment opportunities.



Access to gainful employment is an essential condition for citizens to exercise their economic rights in a market democracy. The capacity to pay is the economic equivalent of the right to vote.



India’s vision for 2020 must be founded on the premise of Jobs for All. Employment must be considered a constitutional right of every citizen, backed by the full commitment of the Government. Granted that the requisite political will is forthcoming, the goal of full employment is certainly achievable. This will require a reorientation of national priorities, technology policy and government action. Formerly separate lines of sectoral planning need to be integrated around a central vision and set of goals, of which full employment must be one.



How and in which fields will these additional job opportunities be created? There are

abundant opportunities and ample means available to the nation to achieve the objective of creating additional employment opportunities. The public organised sector however cannot be the target area, since it will continue to shed jobs for quite some time. Although the growth of the private organised sector will contribute significantly to the growth of the economy, its contribution to employment generation will be quite modest, since total employment in this sector at present represents only 2.5 per cent of all jobs. The largest number of new jobs will be created by small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which contribute the vast majority of private sector jobs in more advanced economies such as the USA, Japan and Korea. International experience confirms that SMEs are better insulated from the external shocks, more resistant to the stresses, and more responsive to the demands of the fast-changing technology adoption, globalisation and entrepreneurial development. Employment has nearly tripled in India’s small and medium sector over the past 20 years. A repetition of this performance would generate an additional 150-200 million jobs by 2020.



A comprehensive package of venture capital, credit, liberalisation of controls, technology, training, marketing and management measures is needed to ensure continuous expansion of this sector. The vision document identifies a number of high employment potential sectors, including commercial agriculture, agro-industry and agri-business; forestation for pulp, fuel and power; retail and wholesale trade; tourism, housing and construction; IT and IT-enabled services; transport and communications; education, health and financial services. While all these sectors are already expanding, a wide range of strategies and policies are available to stimulate more rapid development.

Induction of advanced crop technology will reduce production costs and expand the market for important commercial crops. Linkages to down-stream agro-industries can dramatically reduce waste and spoilage of perishable commodities, while broadening the range of marketable products.



Adoption of an agriculture-based energy policy focusing on production of fuel oil and biomass power could generate millions of additional on-farm jobs and lucrative alternative markets for farm produce, while reducing the country’s dependence on imported fuels. Tourism-related occupations presently employ only 5.6 per cent of the Indian workforce, compared to 10.8 per cent globally. Development of India’s tourism infrastructure, combined with modifications in air transport, hotel rates and tax policies could generate an additional 25 million employment opportunities in this sector. Outsourcing of services by OECD countries will fuel a rapid expansion of IT and ITenabled services, generating millions of jobs within the country. The country will also require millions of additional teachers and medical professionals to meet the surging demand for education and health services.



While it is difficult to project unemployment rates 20 years into the future, rising levels of education and growth of the over-60 age group will mitigate, to some extent, the growth of the labour force. Combined with the enormous opportunities for creation of new employment opportunities, the incidence of unemployment could be almost eliminated by 2020 .



Successful education policy forms the bedrock of all fields of national development—

political, economic, technical, scientific, social and environmental. Education is the foundation for a vibrant democracy, growth of productivity and income and employment opportunities. Literacy must be considered the minimum right and requirement of every Indian citizen. Presently, the country has about 300 million illiterate adults. The Government’s goal is to achieve 75 per cent literacy within the next five years. A 100 per cent literate India is of paramount importance for realising the greater vision presented in this document.



Literacy is an indispensable minimum condition for development, but it is far from sufficient. In this increasingly complex and technologically sophisticated world, 10 years of school education must also be considered an essential prerequisite for citizens to adapt and succeed economically, avail of social opportunities and develop their individual potentials. The current enrolment rate for primary education is around 77 per cent and for secondary education about 60 per cent. Achieving 100 per cent enrolment of all children in the 6 to 14 year age group is an ambitious but achievable goal for 2020 that should be pursued as a top priority.



Increasing enrolment to cover the entire school-age population needs to be combined with efforts to increase the quality and relevance of school curriculum to equip students with not only academic knowledge, but also values and life-knowledge. A qualitative shift is needed from routine memorisation to development of children’s capacity for critical thinking and from methods that emphasise teaching and passive learning to those

that foster active interest and the ability of children to learn on their own.



Concentrated efforts are needed to tap the potentials of alternative methods of knowledge

delivery for both school going and non-school going children and adults, including television, computerised self-learning and Internet-based courses. Given the huge number of young students that will quest for all levels of higher education and a severe shortage of qualified instructors, and given India’s outstanding expertise in the IT industry, the country should embark on a massive programme to convert progressively the higher educational curriculum into a multi-media, webbased format and to establish accredited standards for recognition of courses taught under distance education programmes.

Our vision of India in 2020 is predicated on the belief that human resources are the most

important determinant of overall development. A more than doubling of investment in education from the current level of 3.2 - 4.4 per cent of GNP is the soundest policy for quadrupling the country’s GNP per capita.



The knowledge and skill of our workforce will be a major determinant of India’s future rate of economic growth as well as the type and number of jobs we create. Currently, only five per cent of the country’s labour force in the 20-24 age category have undergone formal vocational training, compared to levels ranging from 28 per cent in Mexico to 96 per cent in Korea. A comprehensive strategy is needed to enhance the nation’s employable skills, including a cataloging of the entire range of vocational skills required to support development, expansion of the nation’s system of vocational training institutes, widening of the range of vocational skills taught, and active involvement of the private sector in skill delivery.



A national network of 50,000 or more computerized vocational centres run by private self-employed businesses, similar to the STD booths and Internet cafes, can deliver low-cost, high-quality training to 10 million workers every year—more than five times the total number covered by existing programmes. A parallel effort is required to upgrade the skills of Indian farmers, who represent 56 per cent of the total workforce. The existing system of 300 Krishi Vignan Kendras needs to be expanded and supplemented by a national network consisting of thousands of farm schools offering practical demonstration and training on lands leased from farmers in the local community.



The health of a nation is a product of many factors and forces that combine and interact.

Economic growth, per capita income, employment, literacy, education, age at marriage, birth rates, availability of information regarding health care and nutrition, access to safe drinking water, public and private health care infrastructure, access to preventive health and medical care, and health insurance are among the contributing factors. Measured in terms of infant mortality rates, maternal mortality, life expectancy and nutrition, the health of the Indian population has improved dramatically over the past 50 years. Yet, despite these achievements, wide disparities exist between different income groups, between rural and urban communities, between different states and even districts within states, and a big gap from the level attained by the high middle income and advanced developed country.



Communicable diseases remain the major cause of illness. During the next 5 to 10 years,

existing programmes are likely to eliminate polio and leprosy and substantially reduce the prevalence of kalaazar and filariasis. However, TB, malaria and AIDS will remain major public health problems.



Improved diagnostic services and treatment can reduce the prevalence and incidence of TB by 2020. Restructuring the workforce and strengthening health care infrastructure can reduce the incidence of malaria by 50 per cent or more within a decade. Childhood diarrhea, another major cause of illness, can be largely prevented through community action and public education. Childhood under-nutrition can be addressed by targeting children of low birth weight and utilising low-cost screening procedures. Given the projected improvement in living standards, food security, educational levels and access to health care among all levels of the population, dramatic progress can be achieved in reducing the prevalence of severe under-nutrition in children substantially by 2020. Although private expenditure on health care is expected to rise sharply, the level of public expenditure needs to rise about four-fold from present levels in order to support a more equitable and effective health care system, providing universal access, fair distribution of financial costs, and special attention to vulnerable groups such as women, children, the aged and disabled. Health insurance can also play an invaluable role in improving the health care system.



Literacy and general education form the base of the knowledge pyramid which is essential for a rapid and sustained development of the society in the 21st Century. The continuous advancement of science and the application of improved technology constitute the middle rung, Social ideals and values form the apex. Technical education, both vocational and professional, provide the foundation for development of science and technology. A large number of the country’s engineering colleges need to be upgraded to quality standards nearer to those of India’s world-class IITs. India’s expenditure on R&D, which is currently 1/60th that of Korea, needs to be considerably enhanced. Another essential requirement is to improve the linkage between technology development and technology application by fostering close ties between basic research and business.



India’s urban population is expected to rise from 28 per cent to 40 per cent of the total

population by 2020, placing increasing strain on the country’s urban infrastructure. Future growth is likely to concentrate in and around 60 to 70 large cities having a population of one million or more. Decentralisation of municipal governance and greater reliance on institutional financing and capital markets for resource mobilisation are likely to increase the disparity between the larger and smaller urban centres. A satisfying outcome will depend on the formulation of effective public policies to accelerate all-round development of smaller urban centres and to refashion the role of the state as an effective facilitator to compensate for the deficiencies of market mechanisms in the delivery of public goods.



Simultaneous efforts are needed to strengthen the rural infrastructure relating to education, health care, transport, telecom, power and water. Unless bold steps are taken to promote a geographically more dispersed and equitable development paradigm, widening disparities between rural and urban centres will accelerate the migration to cities and the rapid expansion of urban slum areas. One promising alternative approach is to link clusters of villages together by high speed circular highways, thereby bringing 100,000 or more people into a circular community that can be crossed within 30 minutes of travel time, and promoting a balanced and distributed development of urban services along the periphery of the ring road.



Rapid flow of information is a catalyst for social development. Vision 2020 conceives of

India evolving into an information society and knowledge economy built on the edifice of information and communication technology (ICT), of which telecommunications is the springboard. Rapid expansion and extension of the country’s fixed and mobile telecom infrastructure is essential for stimulating growth of both the ICT sector and the economy as a whole. The number of fixed telephone line services will multiply another seven-fold in the next 18 years. As the fixed line market matures, more and more users will cross over to mobile communications as well, spurring a mobile revolution in India. Mobile telecommunications and the Internet will set the contours of technological progress over the next two decades. The third generation mobile devices with access to mobile data and voice should be within reach of wide sections of the population by 2020.



Development involves a continuous increase in the number of physical transactions and the speed with which they occur, both of which are highly dependent on the size and quality of the nation’s transport system. Efforts to achieve higher GDP growth rates in future years cannot be sustained without correspondingly greater efforts to strengthen the nation’s transport system. Based on the projected GDP growth of 8 per cent per annum, the total freight traffic is likely to reach five times the level in 2000. Passenger traffic is expected to increase more than four-fold over the next 20 years.

Increasing population combined with continued urbanisation will fuel the explosive growth of personal vehicle movement in cities, which can only be curtailed by massive investment in mass transport services. Specific plans need to be formulated by each urban authority, starting with the provision of bus services, developing intermediate public transport and identifying corridors for future growth, including reserving land for such activity. In the long run, rail-based mass transport systems appear to be the only viable solution to the problems of urban transport in India’s major metropolitan areas.



A key component of rural development is the provision of roads for connectivity, access

being essential for social and economic well-being. Families residing alongside roads benefit from better health and greater educational opportunities compared to the families living in remote villages. Based on current plans, all villages with more than 500 inhabitants will be connected by all-weather roads within the next decade.



Our vision of India 2020 is of a country having a well-developed network of roads and

railways, with adequate capacity to handle the growth in transport demand. The volume of road traffic will multiply about five-fold, carried on a 70,000 km network of national highways. State highways with at least two way lanes will link most districts. Rural roads will provide access to the furthest outlying villages. Technological progress is working towards generation of vehicles that are pollution free and fuel efficient. An efficient public transport system will lead to a reduction in the population of two-wheelers in major urban areas. We also envisage that connection of several major rivers through a network of interlinking canals will provide impetus to rapid growth of lowcost, inland water transport.



Total investment requirements to meet these needs will increase to levels three to four

times higher than present levels in real terms. While the government will continue to be a major source of funds for infrastructure, internal generation of resources by the transport services will have to increase, supported by more realistic pricing of transport services, reduction in operating costs, and active involvement of the private sector in the development and operation of transport systems.



Economic growth is driven by energy that powers the nation’s industries, vehicles, homes

and offices. For future growth to be both rapid and sustainable, the energy source needs to be as resource-efficient and environmentally benign as possible. Total demand for power is expected to increase by another 3.5 times or more in the next two decades, which will necessitate a tripling of installed generation capacity from 101,000 to 292,000 MW by 2020. ‘Business as usual’ will result in a spiralling cost for imported fuels and a surge in emission of environmental pollutants.



The overall growth in demand for all forms of fuel will mirror the growth in the power sector. Total coal demand will nearly double, and both oil and gas demand will triple. Expanding domestic production capacity will require substantial investments, while increasing dependence on imported forms of energy will increase vulnerability to fluctuations in global energy prices. Surging demand will also place increased burden on the physical and social environment.

Enhanced adoption by the public and private sector, of best-practices and environment-friendly technologies, more efficient use of energy, promoting private sector investment, and greater efforts to protect the environment will be required to cope effectively with the nation’s growing energy appetite.



Greater reliance on renewable energy sources offers enormous economic, social and

environmental benefits. India is already the world’s fifth largest producer of wind power, with more than 95 per cent of the investment coming from the private sector. Other renewable energy technologies, including solar photovoltaic, solar thermal, small hydro, biomass power and biofuels are also spreading. A concerted effort to implement a more visionary approach to alternative energy generation could significantly reduce India’s dependence on imported fuels while also reducing the strain on the environment. Biomass power production, ethanol motor fuel and jatropa fuel oil can generate millions of rural employment opportunities and contribute to higher rural incomes, at the same time reducing the outflow of foreign exchange. Tapping this potential will require conducive national policies and programmes designed to attract strong participation from the private sector.



India possesses 16 per cent of the world’s population but just 4 per cent of its water resources. At the national level, current water resources are more than sufficient to meet the demand, but future projections show that the supply situation could become difficult over the next half century.



Total water consumption is expected to rise by 20-40 per cent over the next 20 years. India is not poor in water resources. What it lacks is the ability to efficiently capture and effectively utilise the available resources for maximum benefit. The government policy needs to be revised to provide incentives for efficient use of water, including appropriate water pricing and more effective institutional mechanisms for water management. Enormous potential exists for increasing the productivity of water in agriculture by methods to raise crop productivity combined with better water management. Both urban and rural water resources can be substantially enhanced by widespread adoption of rain-water harvesting techniques, designed to capture run-off water during the monsoon season and channel it to recharge both surface water and underground aquifers. These methods need to be applied throughout the country on a massive scale, both in rural and urban areas.



Proposals to link some of the major rivers together could channel surpluses from floodprone areas into drought-prone regions, create millions of hectares of additional irrigated land, provide an inexpensive system of inland water transport, and generate millions of additional employment opportunities in construction, agriculture, trade and industrial development. Despite the high cost of such a system, the potential benefits to the nation are so vast that pragmatic proposals demand serious consideration. Given the vision and political will, India can convert the present water problem into a huge opportunity.



India’s wide range of agro-climatic regions, vast extent of land and forest, and rich variety of biodiversity rank it among the most naturally endowed nations of the world, but its huge and still expanding human and animal populations and its urge for industrialisation tax these resources to the limit. The potential however exists for dramatically reversing the pattern of degradation that has taken place in recent decades by a systematic effort to halt soil erosion, restore precious nutrients and organic material to crop lands, recharge groundwater tables, and re-establish depleted forest lands. A combination of measures would make it possible to increase the land under forest and tree cover from the current level of 71 million hectares to 83 million hectares.

India’s progress over the next 20 years will be intimately linked to events within the region and around the world. The World Bank estimates that India will become the fourth largest economy in the world by 2020. Liberalisation of trade will open up new opportunities for export of goods,



while increasing pressures on domestic industry to cope with competition from imports. The global market for textiles, clothing and agricultural products will expand dramatically, but India’s ability to export will depend on its capacity to keep pace with rising international standards of price, quality, productivity, and service.

The emerging global scenario will open up greater opportunities for countries with a surplus of well-educated, highly skilled labour that can provide an attractive commercial environment for the outsourcing of manufacturing and service businesses from high and even middle income countries. Export of services is a field in which India can excel. India’s recent boom in outsourcing of IT services is only the tip of a rich vein of economic opportunity that could extend to a wide range of manufacturing and service businesses.



Computerisation, coupled with low cost global telecommunications are generating rapid

growth of trade in service businesses, such as software and IT enabled services. This trend will accelerate, opening up vast opportunities for countries with the capacity to deliver low-cost, high-quality service. At the same time, the pressure for export of the highly educated and highly skilled individuals will also increase, so that a significant migration of scientific, engineering and medical talent is likely to continue.



Growth in the size of the international capital market will open up increasing opportunities for India to attract foreign direct and institutional investment, but a substantial improvement in infrastructure and elimination of most of the bureaucratic barriers will help India in attracting a greater share of FDI flows. Mobilisation of India’s expatriate population could have momentous impact on the inflow of FDI in 2020.

India’s technology policy needs to be reformulated in the light of the emerging international economic environment to capitalise on the accelerated global development and diffusion of technologies and keep pace with more demanding international standards for cost, quality and productivity. We will need to be far more aggressive in acquiring and applying advanced technologies in a wide range of fields, including agriculture, information technology, energy, health and education.

At the same time, we can also aspire to become an important contributor to the expansion of global frontiers of technology by building upon and leveraging our already significant achievements in fields such as pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, software, space and energy.



India is in the midst of transforming an agrarian economy into a modern multi-dimensional economic enterprise and a traditional stratified society into an egalitarian society, while simultaneously fashioning and transforming itself into a modern democracy through consultative politics. It is inevitable that such a rapid social, economic, technological and political development of one billion people should generate turbulence. Yet it is essential that this turbulence be managed and confined within limits that preserve the social fabric and permit the nation’s transformation to continue.

Underlying all our plans and hopes for a better future, underpinning all our efforts to evolve into a prosperous democratic nation is the shared aspiration of all Indian people for peace. Peace is not merely the absence or avoidance of conflict. It is the essential prerequisite for all human and social development, for which we can strive to increase our knowledge, develop our productive skills, strengthen our physical infrastructure, and integrate our multitudinous communities into a strong, united nation.



The challenges to peace are numerous and they come from all directions—from outside our borders and within, as well as from within our minds. Our capacity to preserve and build a lasting peace for all Indians will depend on the strength of our military to defend our borders, the strength of our economy to generate increasing employment and income opportunities for our citizens, the strength of our educational system to cultivate the knowledge and skills of our youth, the strength of our legal and judicial system to safeguard the rights of individuals and communities, the strength of our scientists and engineers to both develop and harness technologies for the benefit of the people, as well as the wisdom and determination of our political leaders to remove injustices and to direct the collective energies of the nation for greater achievement in every field of endeavour.



Development tends to reduce the extent of these disparities in some ways while aggravating them in others. Economic disparities aggravate perceptions of difference between sub-national, linguistic and communal groups, fostering ethnicity and communalism. A positive strategy for national security will depend on the secular and democratic values of the Indian nation deriving its strength from our culture, civilisation and freedom.



External security depends on national power. It requires a continuous enhancement of the

country’s capacity to use its tangible and intangible resources in such a manner as to affect the behaviour of other nations. While power is often conceived in narrow terms as military power, in the world that is emerging it must be much more broadly conceived to include political, economic, technological, social and intellectual dimensions. A vibrant economy and a leading role in international affairs may be as important as a strong military to the preservation and development of national power. Internationally, we must gravitate from a state-centered, egocentric and competitive security paradigm to a co-operative security paradigm that enhances the security of each nation by reducing potential threats to all nations. Human development in all its dimensions is and will remain our highest strategic priority.



India’s economic and technological transition will be accompanied by a multifaceted political transformation that will have profound impact on the functioning of government. This transformation will foster decentralisation and devolution of power to local bodies, including financial devolution and financial responsibility; increasing direct participation of people in setting grass root priorities for distribution of resources, and building and managing local projects; and greater efficiency, transparency, and accountability in government agencies at all levels. E-governance has the potential, if fully harnessed and rightly utilised, to radically improve the speed, convenience, quality and transparency of public administrative services, while enhancing the ability of individual citizens to express and exercise their democratic rights.



Our vision of India in 2020 is of a nation bustling with energy, entrepreneurship and

innovation. The country’s people will be better fed, dressed and housed, taller and healthier, more educated and longer living than any generation in the country’s long history. India will be much more integrated with the global economy and will be a major player in terms of trade, technology and investment. Rising levels of education, employment and incomes will help stabilise India’s internal security and social environment. A united and prosperous India will be far less vulnerable to external security threats. A more prosperous India in 2020 will be characterised by a bettereducated electorate and more transparent, accountable, efficient and decentralised government.



Realisation of this vision will depend on many things, but most importantly on our selfconfidence, self-reliance and determination to make it a reality. For that, we need first of all to abandon the sense of dependence and the urge to imitate other nations blindly. We need also to rediscover the well-springs of our own native strength, the rich endowments of our shared culture and spiritual tradition.

We must reawaken the dormant Spirit of India.

INDIA The Challenges Ahead

India’s per capita income has doubled over the past 20 years. With population growth slowing now to about 1.6 per cent per annum, a growth rate of the gross domestic product (GDP) of around 9 per cent per annum would be sufficient to quadruple the per capita income by 2020.

Opinions on achievable rates of economic growth have a tendency to swing along with the short-term economic performances. Two years ago, the global boom, the IT revolution and the allround optimism led many to believe that in the coming decade India could mimic the 9-10 per cent growth rates that China achieved over a twenty year period. Such optimism is out of fashion today.

But there is ample evidence showing that if we can adopt a longer term perspective that is not blinded by immediate circumstances and fluctuating moods, higher rates of growth should be achievable for India in the coming years. This is not a prediction—it is a potential. The reality will depend on how effectively we seize the opportunity to do so.

From a historical perspective, global rates of development have been increasing for more than a century. The dramatic rise of Japan and the East Asian tigers, and most recently China, are illustrative of this point. An objective assessment reveals that all the major engines of economic growth that have accelerated growth up till now, will be present in greater abundance in the coming years than they had been in the past.

A vision is a statement of aspirations and intentions, and therefore, it is essential that we fully recognize the need for determined effort to transform all these potentials into realities. Ultimately, it is not our capacity for prediction but our action that will determine the outcome. That action needs to be based on proper appreciation of the forces available for accelerating our progress.

Assuming that India achieves this quadrupling of per capita income by 2020, it would attain a level of development far higher than where China is today, and on par with upper-middle income countries (UMI) such as Argentina, Chile, Hungary, Malaysia, Mexico and South Africa. One day India will rise higher still, and having achieved such a target, will know HOW she achieved it. But such knowledge could be acquired even now from the experiences of the many nations that have already passed through these stages of development. From their experiences India should endeavor to acquire the underlying principles and theoretical knowledge that can then be applied appropriately to our own specific case. Therefore, we refer to the average performance of this group of UMI countries as a benchmark for our development challenges and achievable goals by 2020.

Following Table compares India’s current status on some key parameters of development with the average level achieved by a group of UMI countries. It may be noted that we are not holding up the UMI countries as the goal for India in 2020, but merely using them as a reference point to indicate the magnitude of progress India needs to make in different fields. Our vision is not only to reach these reference levels but to surpass them in many cases.

Developmental Parameters at a Glance

India Present vs. UMI Reference for India 2020

Developmental Parameters India UMI Reference Present for India 2020

Major Challenges for India

• A targeted approach to bring millions of families above the poverty line.

• Generation of nearly ten millions of new employment opportunities per annum, especially for those in the lower income groups.

Eradication of illiteracy.

• A concerted effort to raise primary and secondary enrolment rates and minimize dropouts.

• Improved public health to reduce infant mortality and child malnutrition.

• Massive investment in power generation, telecommunications and other physical and social infrastructure.

• Accelerated acquisition of technology capabilities to raise productivity in agriculture,

Industry and services.

• Becoming a more important player in the world economy in terms of both trade and

Investments.

We are confident that we can and will meet these challenges. We also feel that we have the knowledge and the capacity as a nation to achieve food for all, health for all, and jobs for all. What we do not know for sure however is, how long it will take us to accomplish them. We need, therefore, to affirm the will and the determination to do it rapidly and achieve it now rather than sometime later.

What India will be in 2020?

Ten years is too long a period for one or the other. Even our demographic projections, based on the most reliable data and well-documented trends, are only able to estimate the country's population a single decade hence and within a range of 100 million people. How then shall we hazard a projection of the harder to measure eventualities?

The second decade of the 21st Century lies behind a barrier that is impenetrable by statistical probes. Looking backwards, we become aware of how limited our horizon of certitude really is. In the mid-1960s, when India was confronted with the threat of widespread famine and was perennially dependent on foreign food aid to feed its people, who among the most visionary of us could have imagined that within such a short period food grain production would double and the country would be having significant surpluses? Who could have anticipated the sheer speed of Japan's rise in the 1970s and 1980s or its equally surprising stagnation during the 1990s? In 1980, who could anticipate the Personal Computers revolution that was to follow just two years later? In 1983, when India's total software exports were only $12 million, who could imagine that they would multiply 500 times in 17 years and the country would be recognized around the world as a major IT power? In early 1989, who could foresee that the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Cold War, the break up of the USSR and the entire Eastern Bloc would all occur within 24 months? Even a visionary like Microsoft's founder Bill Gates admits that he was unable to grasp the enormous potential of the Internet until it had already spawned a global revolution. The growth rate of our cities, which mirrors global trends of urbanization, is 25 per cent lower today than what we predicted just five Years ago.

Planning and prediction over such long time horizons as one decadeis  beyond our capacity, but we do possess a still greater human endowment that can enable us to envision the real possibilities and to perceive the necessary actions we need to take to convert those possibilities into realities.

Call it vision or imagination, or aspiration, or anything else, it is this faculty that most differentiates us from other species and constantly drives the evolutionary progress of humanity. Vision requires a subtle blend of humility and the courage to dare.

For a vision to be realizable, it must bring into view the untapped potentials and unutilized opportunities that await exploitation both domestically and internationally, as well as the problems and challenges that impede our progress. Indeed, it is the forces which oppose our progress that generate the necessary pressure compelling us to strive harder. They may even prove to be the best indices of what will be achieved.

In envisioning a better future, we should not make the mistake of dwelling on what we lack rather than on what we possess, for India today possesses both the capacities and the opportunities to achieve a state of super-abundance. The effective strategy should focus on fully utilizing the material, human, technological and social resources that we possess in the most rapid, efficient and organized manner.

A realizable vision  identified the catalytic forces that can be harnessed to accelerate the nation's development, as well as the obstacles that must be overcome, and anachronisms and out-dated attitudes done away with, in order to advance rapidly. It  frankly own past errors and troublesome propensities, but with faith in our capacity to learn from the past and change–as indeed we are now changing–with ever increasing speed. In a realizable vision, there is no room for lofty optimism based on the premise that everything will turn out for the best regardless of what we decide or how we act. But, equally, there can be no scope for extreme pessimism based on ideas that deprive us of the freedom and power to determine our own future. Our vision  expressed  the nation's aspirations, determination and commitment for self-realization.

We began our visioning exercise by cataloguing the untapped potentials and under-utilized resources that are available to the nation, and then turn our attention to the present problems and emerging opportunities which constitute the raw materials from which we  fashion a better future for our country and its people.

In formulating our vision of the future India, it is important to see beyond the limits of the immediate past to rediscover the greatness that is India. Although the present Republic of India is a young developing nation, our people have a rich and illustrious history as one of the longest living civilizations in the world.
In 1835, even the British historian and politician, Lord Macaulay, admitted before the British Parliament:
"I have traveled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such caliber… the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage….."

Thus, it would be wrong to state that in 1947 India started to construct a modern nation from scratch. Rather, it began the process of rediscovering its rich cultural and spiritual values that had formed the foundation of India in the past. It is on this foundation that we formulated our vision of India 2020.

It is indeed a challenge to formulate a cohesive vision for India in 2020. Therefore, we thought it appropriate to seek inspiration from one who had a clear vision and possessed the gift to articulate it in a manner that has inspired the hearts and minds of countless Indians..