Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised to make India the third largest economy of the world within the next three years. In a recent projection the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has observed that India will become the third largest economy by 2027 behind the United States (US) and China. IMF has made this forecast on the basis of the progress made by the Indian economy since 2014. In 2014, India was a two trillion dollar economy and remained at the 10th position among the biggest economies of the world. Since then, the Indian economy has made steady upward progress by reaching seventh place in 2017 and in 2021 had risen to fifth place behind US, China, Japan and Germany. The IMF is hopeful that if the Indian economy continues to progress in the same manner, it may rise by at least two more positions by 2027.
Such predictions highlight the fact that India, which was once ranked among the poorest nations of the world, has come a long way despite several setbacks which included a recent 25 per cent contraction due to COVID-19 pandemic, in its nearly eight decades journey since becoming Independent. While some countries of the world are still struggling to recover fully from the jolt received during the pandemic, India is marching ahead. The tag of being the fastest growing economy of the world stands as a testimony to this fact. In terms of growth rate, India has even leapfrogged ahead of China, it astonished the entire world by maintaining an impressive growth rate over the last two decades. This has propelled the country towards one day replacing the US as the largest economy of the world.
On its part, India will have to work tremendously hard to become the world’s third largest economy. Economists have already warned that the country has to achieve at least eight per cent growth rate for the next three years to overtake the two nations which are currently ahead of India in rankings. In order to rise to the third position leaving Germany and Japan behind, India should take its growth rate to new heights to continuously stay ahead of these two nations. The fact that the German economy has already gone into recession and the Japanese economy has shrunk to less than $ 5 trillion in 2022, should not make us complacent. Rather we should work harder to achieve what once seemed impossible by ensuring that the fruits of development reaches the targeted sections of society. Already, India is termed by many as a rich nation with poor people and in our quest to become the third largest economy in the world, India should take a vow to remove this unsavoury tag by bringing all of India’s citizens into a prosperous future.
