Context

• Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged to make India a developed country in the next quarter-century on the eve of 75^th year of Indian independence.
• PM Modi has urged citizens to focus on five resolutions ('Panchpran') to make India a developed nation in the next 25 years i.e. by 2047 when the country celebrates 100 years of independence.

About Panchpran', or five promises

• To move forward with bigger resolves and the resolve of a developed India
• To erase all traces of servitude(enslavement)
• To be proud of India’s legacy
• To focus on India’s unity, which is its strength
• To fulfill the duties of citizens with honesty

“Developed” country classification

• The ‘World Economic Situation and Prospects (WESP)’ classifies all countries into three broad categories as developed economies, economies in transition, and developing economies.
• To categorise countries by economic conditions, the United Nations uses the World Bank’s categorisation based on Gross National Income (GNI) per capita (in current US dollars).

• The UN’s nomenclature of “developed” and “developing” is often contested owing to following reasons:
  • There are 31 developed countries according to the UN in all and categorisation of China as a “developing” country is disputed.
  • All the rest, except 17 “economies in transition” are designated as “developing” countries.
  • China’s per capita income is closer to Norway’s than Somalia’s. China’s per capita income is 26 times that of Somalia’s while Norway’s is just about seven times that of China’s.
  • Countries such as Ukraine, with a per capita GNI of $4,120 (a third of China’s) are designated as “economies in transition”.

India’s standing

• Absolute level of GDP: On this metric, India is one of the biggest economies of the world, even though the US and China remain far ahead.
• Per capita income: In 2021, India’s per capita income, calculated in international dollars based on purchasing power parity was 7,333.5 dollars
  • India is behind even Bangladesh. China’s per capita income is 5.5 times that of India, and the UK’s is almost 33 times.
  • It was also one seventh of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries per capita income of 48,482.1 dollars. OECD is a group of developed economies.
  • While India’s per capita income grew at double the rate of OECD nations in the last 25 years, it would need to grow at 12.4 percent consistently to catch up to OECD countries within the next 25 years.
• Social indicators: The infant mortality ratee. the number of infant deaths per 1,000 live births reduced from 76 in 1996 to 27 in 2020, but it was still over four times the OECD average of six. At the current pace, India will only be able to achieve an infant mortality rate of 10.
  • The life expectancy at birth in India has gone from around 40 years in 1947 to around 70 years now.
• Human development: India’s current HDI score (0.64) is much lower than what any of the developed countries had even in 1980.
  • China reached the 0.64 level in 2004, and took another 13 year to reach the 0.75 level which was, incidentally the level at which the UK was in 1980.
• Gender mainstreaming: Female Labour Force Participation Ratio has dropped sharply from 32 per cent in 2005 to just 19.2 per cent in 2021, although the latest data is a small recovery from 18.6 per cent, the lowest in 32 years in the first pandemic year of 2020.
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Distance left to cover

• As per 2018 diagnostic report on India by the World Bank, though India is the world’s third-largest economy in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, but only ten per cent of Indians, at most, have consumption levels above the commonly used threshold of $10 (PPP) per day expenditures for the global middle class.
• Other metrics, such as the food share of consumption, suggest that even rich households in India need a substantial expansion of their total consumption to reach levels of poor households in rich countries.

How much can India achieve by 2047?

• Learning from others journey: To make assessment of quantifiable achievements in next 25 years, India needs to look at how long other countries took to get there.
  • For instance, in per capita income terms, Norway was at India’s current level 56 years ago, in the year 1966.
• Comparison with China: China reached India’s current per capita income mark in 2007. If India were to grow as fast as China did between 2007 and 2022, then, it will take India another 15 years to be where China is now.
  • Also, China’s current per capita income was achieved by the developed countries several decades earlier like the UK in 1987, the US and Norway in 1979.
• World Bank estimates: As per World Bank’s 2018 report, by 2047, atleast half Indian citizens could join the ranks of the global middle class which means that households have access to better education, health care, clean water, improved sanitation, reliable electricity, affordable housing, and enough discretionary income to spend on leisure pursuits.
  • Pre-conditions: The World Bank laid out certain preconditions for this to happen like income well above the extreme poverty line and vastly improved public service delivery.