‘Strategy for New India @75’: Strategy Document for New India released by NITI Aayog

On December 19, 2018, the NITI Aayog unveiled its comprehensive national Strategy for New India dubbed as ‘Strategy for New India @75’, defining clear objectives for 2022-23. The document aims for establishing a New India by 2022 and to propel India towards a USD 5 trillion economy by 2030.

Highlights:

• This was released by the Union Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley, in the presence of NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Dr Rajiv Kumar, Members Dr Ramesh Chand and Dr VK Saraswat and CEO Shri Amitabh Kant.
• Over 800 stakeholders from within the government – central, state and district levels – and about 550 external experts were consulted during the preparation of the document for the past one year.

About the Document:

• The document contains 41 chapters which have been categorized in 4 sections. They are: Drivers, Infrastructure, Inclusion and Governance.
• The first section on Drivers focuses on: growth and employment, doubling of farmers’ incomes; upgrading the science, technology and innovation eco-system; and promoting sunrise sectors like fintech and tourism.
• The second section on Infrastructure deals with the ways to enhance the competitiveness of Indian business as also ensuring the citizens’ ease of living.
• The third section on Inclusion has three themes revolving around the dimensions of health, education and mainstreaming of traditionally marginalized sections of the population.
• The final section on Governance deals with how the governance structures can be streamlined and processes optimized to achieve better developmental outcomes.

Detailed recommendations for each category:

Following recommendations have been made in each of the categories:

Drivers:

• To achieve a GDP growth rate of about 8% on average during 2018-23 and increase Tax-GDP ratio to 20% of GDP,
• To raise the economy’s size in real terms from USD 2.7trillion in 2017-18 to nearly USD 4 trillion by 2022-23.
• Increase the investment rate as measured by gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) from the present 29% to 36% of GDP by 2022.
• In agriculture, farmers to be converted to ‘agripreneurs’ by further expanding National Agriculture Markets and
• Replacing the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee Act with the Agricultural Produce and Livestock Marketing Act.
• Give a strong push to ‘Zero Budget Natural Farming’ techniques that reduce costs, improve land quality and increase farmers’ incomes,
• Launch a mission “Explore in India” by revamping minerals exploration and licensing policy.
• Create a non-lapsable ‘District Innovation Fund’.
• In technology, achieve a position among top 50 in the Global Innovation Index.

Infrastructure:

• Establishment of the Rail Development Authority (RDA) for making informed decisions on an integrated, transparent and dynamic pricing mechanism for the railways.
• Implement 22 recommendation of the High-Level safety Review committee chaired by Dr. Kakodkar.
• Double the share of freight transported by coastal shipping and inland waterways.
• Completion of Bharat Net programme in 2019 and connecting all 2.5 lakh gram panchayats digitally.
• Increase India’s share in global tourist arrivals from 1.2% to 3%,
• Develop 100 smart tourist destination Sites, make Tourism infrastructure project over Rs. 1 crore as ‘ infrastructure’
• Make power to all, achieve 175 GW  renewable energy generation capacity,
• Double length of National Highways,
• Establish a dedicated Metropolitan Urban Transport Authority in 1 million plus population cities.

Inclusion:

• Implementing the Ayushman Bharat programme including the establishment of 150,000 health and wellness centres across the country, and rolling out the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Abhiyaan (PM-JAY).
• Achieve doctor-population ratio of 1:1400 & nurse population ratio of 1:500.
• creation of a new innovation ecosystem at the ground level by establishing at least 10,000 Atal Tinkering Labs by 2020.
• Integrate an Arthik Shiksha Abhiyan in regular school curriculum.
• Increase gross enrolment ratio in higher education from 25% in 2016-17 to 35% in 2022-23
• Setting up a national electronic teacher registry

Governance:

• Set up a new autonomous body, viz., the Arbitration Council of India to make the arbitration process cost effective and speedy, and to pre-empt the need for court intervention.
• Address the backlog of pending cases – shift part of workload out of regular court system
• Expand the scope of Swachh Bharat Mission to cover initiatives for landfills, plastic waste and municipal waste and generating wealth from waste.

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NITI Aayog:
♦ Chairman: PM Narendra Modi.
♦  Vice-Chairman: Rajiv Kumar.
♦  CEO: Amitabh Kant.