Govt on track to make India $5 trillion economy: Misra

The government is working hard to realize Prime Minister Narendra Modi's dream of making the country a five trillion dollar economy by 2024 and has taken steps to overcome the phase of economic slowdown, a top official said on Friday.

The nation is witnessing a new sense of dynamism and a number of initiatives are being taken in line with Modi's vision of a 'New India', Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister Pramod Kumar Misra said.

"On the economic front, in particular, the prime minister has set a goal of becoming a five trillion dollar economy by 2024. While this is an ambitious aspiration, we are on track and fully committed to the same," he said while addressing the 30th convocation of the Sambalpur University.

Describing the country's economic fundamentals as strong, Mishra said the annual average GDP growth of 7.5 percent during 2014-2019 was the highest since independence.

It was also the highest among the G20 countries, he said.

"Macro-economic stability during the last five years has been the bedrock on which various reforms have been rolled out. We have kept the inflation low, fiscal spending disciplined, and current account deficit under control," the official said.

"While several fundamental and path-breaking reforms have been undertaken in the form of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code and GST, continuous opening up and liberalization of foreign direct investment has resulted in unprecedented inflows of FDI into the country," he said.

On the slow-down in GDP, Mishra said there is a slow- down in global growth of output, while intensive efforts to bring about transparency, prevent leakages and improve governance would also have caused some transitory disruptions.

"The strong corrective action of the past five years, emphasizing on rule of law and formalization of the economy is bound to have a short-term drag effect," he said.

Asserting that the government is alert and active, Mishra said, "On the whole, given the strong fundamentals, landmark clean-up drive and ambitious reform agenda initiated, India is set to grow at a much faster pace in the coming months and years. Immense economic opportunities are unfolding for all of you."

Game-changers such as the smartphone revolution, artificial intelligence, big data analytics, augmented reality, 3D printing, robotics, and blockchain technology are transforming the world and the way people engage in it, he said.

"These opportunities pose many challenges as well. Unless we are able to keep abreast of the changes, learn new things and compete with others, we will fall behind. Our age-old scriptures had envisioned the value of knowledge and continuous learning. These are even more relevant in today's fast-changing technology-driven world," Mishra said.

He asked the people to be sincere in discharging their duties and responsibilities in order to enjoy their rights.