Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'India should learn from Dubai and Japan' that was published in Newsband

India should learn from Dubai and Japan

Bharatiya Janata Party had promised to usher in an economic revival nationally. The party seems to be living up to its promise because the latest data shows an increase in investments in the road and power sectors.

Undoubtedly, the current figures highlight the progress the present government has achieved in the field of infrastructure development. They deserve all the credit but at the same time the government should not become complacent with these results. It is mere a beginning. We live in a globalized world and everything we do has a degree of relativity vis a vis the whole world. As it is said "well begun is half done". If the present government realizes that the impact such developments have on the nation as a whole, it will have all the motivation to carry on the good work. Good infrastructure is the backbone of the economy - right from agriculture to investments to the employment opportunities almost everything has a very strong link with the infrastructure. The WEF Global Competitive Index can be used as a reference to set our short term and long term goals.

Increase in GDP can always never be the criteria to be considered when India is placed at the bottom ranking of indices of Human development index and multi dimensional poverty index. Our position is pathetic when compared with Bangladesh and Nepal. Along with the GDP, increase in the above mentioned index could be considered as the real growth by taking into account huge deprived population.

Public Private Partnership arrangements are key to develop India. The private players are potent and shall invest in building Indian infrastructure, including Road and Electricity sectors, under the aid and advice of Government. Therefore, it is essential to create a win-win situation in public-private engagements. The pre-requisites for the same are: 1) A transparent public-private engagement framework. 2) Availability of long term funding. 3) Viability Gap Funding 4) Pre-determined Arbitration mechanism in order to resolve conflicts, expediently.

The low global ranking of India’s infrastructure — the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index placed it in the bottom half among 144 countries — is one of the commonly cited impediments to attracting foreign direct investment. Look at developed countries like Japan and on another side India which is still struggling to attract investors from foreign countries. Take a look at Dubai, in 10 -15 years it changed so dramatically. We cannot change at that speed, but at least we can take a leaf out of their chapter of success in conceptualizing and creating infrastructural projects. The shameful part is that many representatives who go abroad gloat themselves with selfies of those places and forget the real purpose of going to international conferences and we have TV shows blowing their lungs that we will become a super power.

India needs dynamic and optimistic people. Everybody has to contribute for the development of the Country.