Port Blair, Dec. 22: India is on the path of growth and prosperity once again, the Reserve Bank of India Governor, Dr. Raghuram G. Rajan stated this addressing the interaction meeting, he had with the students and academicians in the auditorium of DBRAIT today. Despite global difficulties and two successive weak monsoon, broadly speaking, India is moving forward, he said adding that the world is not growing at a faster pace and some of the largest country who were the engines of growth like China is faltering due to domestic difficulties. In this current scenario, we have to think, ‘how we should grow or move forward’, he said. Dr. Raghuram said, the Prime Minister has proposed the idea of ‘Make in India’, which certainly is a good move and we should not only make for our country but also for the rest of the world.
Praising the extraordinary developments taking place in the Islands, Dr. Raghuram said the Islands has a bright future. To achieve this, an integrated development plan is very much essential for these Islands to move towards the path of progress. “We should energise the people and if people can take the future in their hands then nothing can stop the Islands from prospering”, he added. Internet is a medium which absolutely is the way of the future for a place like Andaman and Nicobar Islands, he said citing example of Srinagar, where the weavers were looking for market to sell their products, are now using the internet to sell their products, not only in India but also foreign countries. The ‘Make in India’ concept can be adopted in A&N Islands by giving a thought what can be produced here which will have a good market in the rest of the country and world. He said, as Government as regulatory authority, what can be done is to create an environment, in which people can find out what makes sense and to achieve this a coordinated effort is needed.
Opining that unified market needs to be created, he said, if European Union can have unified markets then why can India adopt this concept of unified market.
Goods and Services Tax (GST) is something which will enormously benefit the country and Dr. Rajan expressed the hope that a political consensus will be reached to get it passed in Parliament. India is very close to achieving sufficient power generation but despite this capacity of power, he said, “we still have blackouts”. The first and foremost reason is that the distribution companies are unable to purchase the power because they are in debt. To deal with this situation, the Government has proposed a plan for the distribution companies to purchase power so that they are able to distribute the power benefiting the common man.
Dr. Rajan said cleaning up the bank’s balance sheet is very essential and for this, he urged the banks to take extra efforts. He expressed the hope that by the year 2017 much of the problems of the banks will be dealt with.
The Lt. Governor, Lt. Gen A.K. Singh (Retd) in his address said, India has really entered into the 21st century with great expectations, responsibilities and obligations. The present government at the Centre has taken dynamic steps with introduction of schemes for inclusion of all sections of the society such as ‘Jan Dhan Yojana’, ‘Bima Yojana’, ‘Mudra Bank’ etc. The Lt. Governor said, this will help in reducing the gap between the haves and have nots which is increasing rather widely in the country. The present impasse in Parliament is a obstacle for growth.
The Lt. Governor highlighted about the central fund allocated for the Islands. He said, this year, the A&N Island received a budgetary allocation of Rs.3800 crores and this is increasing steadily @10% every year. The Islands, in return generate a revenue less than 10% of the amount i.e. Rs.320 crore, the Lt. Governor said adding that this cannot be continued for long and steps needs to be taken to generate larger revenues to make the Islands self-reliant. This is a challenge, he said, and asked the Chief Secretary and Finance Secretary to take all the stakeholders into confidence and slowly built a road map where by 6 to 7 years atleast Rs.1000 crores of revenue can be generated from A&N Islands.
Later, the students and academicians from different schools, institutions, colleges raised queries on the present global scenario and on Indian economy.
The Chief Secretary, A&N Administration, Shri Anand Prakash, the Adhyaksha, Zilla Parishad, South Andaman, Smt. Minati Biswas, Senior Officers from the Civil Administration and Defence and a large gathering of students drawn from schools and colleges including faculty members attended the interaction programme.
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