Gender disparity hindering development: Amitabh Kant

Stressing the need to grow at 9-10% consistently for three decades to lift young population above poverty line, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said that gender disparity, and health issues among women are the major hindrance in the path of economic take off.

Addressing the seventh N J Yasaswy memorial lecture here on Saturday at ICFAI, Kant also cautioned about crippling issues like failure of governance, challenges in the health and education sector, concerns in the agricultural sector, and under-performance in exports.

He said that adopting emerging technologies will help in improving grassroot sectors like health and education.

Kant highlighted the developments like improvement in "ease of doing business" ranking system to inculcate competitiveness among states to beat each other in terms of development, digitisation across the sectors.

He exhorted the students to become entrepreneurs to create jobs for others instead of looking for government jobs. “By doing so, you have a tremendous opportunity to transform the growth of the nation,” he said.