A NITI Aayog delegation led by its CEO B.V.R. Subrahmanyam and the State Economic Advisory Committee led by Tata Sons Chairman N. Chandrasekaran held meetings with chief minister Eknath Shinde and the two DCMs, Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar, within a fortnight, underscoring the importance attached to Maharashtra and Mumbai by the nation’s planners, preparing for its quantum jump to become a five trillion dollar economy by 2028. Both expert groups discussed in detail with senior officials of different state departments the potential of contributing in the economic progress of the country.
The NITI team expressed the belief that urban areas hold immense potential to drive economic advancement to achieve the target of Vikasit Bharat during the Amrit Kaal. According to team experts, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of several major city regions worldwide almost matches the GDPs of some small countries. Back home, Mumbai’s civic budget is larger than some smaller states. This trend reflects urban centers’ growing economic prominence and vitality, highlighting their pivotal role in shaping the country’s economic development. Indian cities also hold potential to propel unparalleled economic growth which needs to be realised. While the government is exploring multiple pathways at all levels to achieve this target, strategizing for transforming city regions into mega economic growth hubs is crucial, the experts felt.
Recognizing the importance of leveraging urbanization for economic growth and in line with NITI Aayog’s mandate of fostering cooperative federalism, an initiative focused on developing city-regions as growth hubs has been conceived as an integral part of planning. This initiative is a close collaboration of NITI Aayog with the state governments and renowned subject experts. It endeavors to forge a robust economic growth strategy for city-regions across India and prepare a roadmap for achieving the objective within a firm deadline. NITI Aayog will also constitute a National Advisory Committee of renowned experts under this initiative, it transpired from the visit.
In the initial stage, four city-regions will be taken up on a pilot basis to develop a template for devising an economic strategy. Later, it will be scaled up to 16 more cities. In addition to these, the economic strategy template will act as the model strategy for other city-regions across the country for achieving desired economic targets. For each city region, the Project aims to deliver a roadmap for developing economic growth strategy. To achieve this, a series of activities will be undertaken including, a comprehensive baseline assessment of the city region’s economy, SWOT analysis for understanding the strength and challenges of the region, identification of growth drivers, setting economic goals, designing policy enablers and proposing governance structure for projectization of the proposed strategies. The initiative is expected to support the country to achieve $35-$45 trillion Economy Target by 2047.
In the first phase, Mumbai, Surat and Vishakhapatnam have been identified for the pilot phase. Under the priority of achieving trillion dollar aspirations of Maharashtra state economy, Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) needs to strengthen the economic footprint in a sustainable manner. NITI Aayog will assist the Maharashtra government in developing a high-level roadmap to achieve Rs.300 billion GDP from the current Rs.140 billion for the MMR region. A state-level committee comprising senior officials of relevant departments will also be formed to support the execution of the initiative. During the discussions, the NITI Aayog team presented a set of 10-15 marquee investible projects with investment aspirations of $150 billion by 2030. These economic growth drivers will be selected, based on the city’s endowments. Examples of the projects include an integrated Aerocity near the Navi Mumbai airport, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) hub emulating the US Silicon Valley, a global medi-city, developing Mumbai’s eastern seaboard for culture, tourism, reinvigoration of SEZ land for select manufacturing and services as well as master planning Bullet Train stations such as Virar and Boisar.
For immediate action, the Economic Advisory Committee led by Tata Sons Chairman N. Chandrasekaran has proposed a blueprint to make Maharashtra $Trillion economy by 2028.
The committee’s report outlines policy measures and other initiatives that have to be taken across eight areas including manufacturing, services, energy–renewables and sustainability, infra real estate and logistics, ease of doing business, MSME enablement, skill development as well as agriculture and allied services.
The EAC members toured more than 20 districts, met with over 500 stakeholders across sectors, interacted with district-level government officials, held consultation workshops to get on-ground sense and interviewed more than 75 experts in various fields to draw out the plan.
Chief minister Eknath Shinde has said, “Ease of doing business will be our focus. I am very glad that the committee has come out come out with enablers in each segment including agriculture. These enablers will be an operational blueprint to be followed while making new policies. We will set up an empowered execution team with sector-wise responsibilities and both DCM and I will ensure it is properly monitored.”
Providing the perspective, Chandrasekaran said, “We have focussed on inclusive and sustainable growth across sectors and districts. Given our talent pool, we should aim to be the AI capital of India. The growth plan would help create 15 million jobs and double per capita income for all sections of society, including farmers. The report includes initiatives to strengthen skill development to support job growth.“
The state government is reviewing the report and will constitute an Empowered Team soon for its execution. It will have to marry the recommendations of the two expert groups – NITI Aayog and EAC – at the earliest without falling for political exigencies.
The idea and subject of billion and trillion dollar economy are not new for the readers of this column since on two earlier occasions, the need to remove regional developmental imbalance were discussed in details. Moreover, the need to accelerate the state’s industrial development was highlighted since a sort of tilted picture has emerged as the service sector has grown more strongly that the manufacturing sector. At the same time, the share of farm sector in the overall GDP growth has been reducing. This is not a good sign for a healthy economy. Considering these and other relevant factors, the planners will have to determine the long and short term objectives for Maharashtra’s economy.
A Column By
Dilip Chaware – Senior Editor
A media professional for 43 years, with extensive experience of writing on
a variety of subjects; he is also a documentary producer and book author.
