Targets of achieving SDG, $5 trillion economy may get delayed because of Covid-19: Bibek Debroy

Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council Chairman Bibek Debroy has cautioned that India’s target of achieving the $5 trillion economy may move two years away from 2025 and it will be a little more difficult for the country to adhere to the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) target with the Covid-19 pandemic whittling away two years of economic development.

India’s economy is currently about $2.8 trillion.

“The pandemic has resulted in whittling away of two years of economic development. So not only the target of $5 trillion moves far away but also the fact that adhering to the 2030 SDGs target for India will be a little more difficult,” Debroy said at an industry event on Friday.

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Experts have maintained that India needed to grow on average at 9% every year in real terms from the year 2020 to 2024 to achieve the target of $5 trillion economy.

India's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), however, contracted 7.3% in 2020-21 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. GDP growth in 2019-20 before Covid-19 was 4%.

Debroy said that indicators that have surfaced so far show that the corporate profitability results are pretty good. But despite good corporate profitability, employment in urban areas has not picked up.

“One of the worrying signs at the moment is, although I said the corporate sector seems to be doing well, there aren't any robust signs of employment picking up in the urban areas, so far. This is really a function of what has been happening to un-incorporated enterprises and I have in mind MSMEs,” he said.