Progress in Industry in 75 years
INDUSTRY@75
Industrial Growth: Historical Background
• The advent of Britishers in India led to the decay of the Indian handicraft industry and machine
made goods started flooding into the Indian markets post-Industrial revolution.
• But soon after Independence, through the subsequent five-year plans, government shifted its
focus on industrialisation.
• The First Five-year Plan mainly focused on the development of both the private and public sectors.
The second plan on Mahalanobis Model gave priority to Industrialisation. The third plan along with
the first and second ones helped build up the capital goods industries in India.
• Between 1965- 1980, industrial growth saw a decline mainly due to the negligence of the consumer
goods sector in the first three plans. But between 1980-1991, industries recovered from downfall
due to an increase in the productivity of Indian Industries and improvement in manufacturing and
capital goods sector.
• Post-1991 economic liberalisation of India, many reforms were brought which helped shape the
future of industries in India.
Current Situation
• India’s Ease of Doing Business rank according to the ‘World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business
Report 2020’ is 63rd among 190 countries. This is a jump of 79 positions from 142nd in 2014.
• FDI inflows between April 2014 – September 2019 stood at $319 bn which is nearly 50% of total FDI
inflow in the last 20 years. During FY 2020-21, the total FDI inflow of $35.73 billion is the highest
ever for the first five months of a financial year.
• Recently, the government has also approved 100 percent FDI through the automatic route in coal
mining, 100 percent FDI through the direct route in contract manufacturing, and 74 percent through
automatic route in the Defense sector.
• The start-up culture in India has seen massive growth under the Start-Up India scheme launched
in 2016. The government’s flagship initiatives like Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), have helped
advance India’s position in the Global Innovation Index from 81 in 2015 to 48 in 2020.
• NITI Aayog is playing a big role in tackling development challenges in the country through policy
advocacy. 115 districts have been identified across the nation as aspirational districts.
• These districts are being ranked based on progress being made (delta ranking) on a real-time basis
based on 49 indicators from the 5 identified thematic areas — Health & Nutrition, Education,
Agriculture & Water Resources, Financial Inclusion & Skill Development, and Basic Infrastructure.
VAJIRAM AND RAVI Yojana Summary- January 2021 Page 3
• In December 2019, NITI Aayog had released the second edition of the Sustainable Development
Goals (SDG) India Index and an online dashboard to track the progress on 17 SDGs of all the
States and UTs on a set of 100 National Indicators.
• India has made considerable progress especially in SDG 6: Clean water and sanitation by
constructing over 11 crore toilets to become open defecation-free in five years.
• The Digital India campaign launched in 2015 has ensured the creation of a digitally empowered
society and knowledge economy. Through the Bharat Net programme, which is also the world’s
largest rural broadband connectivity programme, 2.5 lakh gram panchayats are being connected
by a fiber-optic network.
• India’s Aadhaar has become the world’s largest biometric database and is playing a pivotal role
in preventing leakages via its integration with the DBT scheme.
• UPI and Aadhaar has drastically reduced the cost of money distribution among the poor.
According to the 2019 global Multidimensional Poverty Index India has lifted 271 million people out
of poverty between 2006 and 2016.
• Mudra loan scheme, launched in 2015, by providing credit up to 10 lakh to non-farming and noncorporate micro and small enterprises has helped enable every last mile financer to lend credit to all types of businesses in the country.
• Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana launched in 2019 is providing 6,000 per year as minimum income support to all farmers.
• India’s Global stature has improved considerably with its recent election as Chair of the World Health Organization’s Executive Board in May 2020 and being elected as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for a two-year term in June 2020.
• India is emerging as a global power and is scheduled to host the G20 in 2023. Also, in June 2020, US had invited PM Modi to attend and be part of G7 as he wanted to expand G7 which would give
India a chance to expand its economy rapidly.
• India has dealt with the pandemic better than any country in the world. We have the highest recoveryrates of around 95% and a plan in place to distribute vaccines to all of our citizens. India
manufactures more than 60% of all vaccines sold across the globe.
• The world’s largest distributor of vaccines – Serum Institute of India is also located in India.
• Aatmanirbhar Bharat economic stimulus relief package of 20 lakh crore amounting to 10% of
GDP was released to fight the pandemic.
• 80 crore people were given free food grains till November 2020 under PM Garib Kalyan Yojana and 20 crore Women Jan Dhan holders were given 500 per month for 3 months. MNREGA wage rate was increased to 202 per person per day.
• The new National Education Policy (NEP), 2020 will make India a global knowledge superpower.Through the SWAYAM portal, the government is bridging the digital divide for students.
• Under the ‘Make in India’ initiative the MSME contribution to the GDP is being targeted to be increased to 50 percent from the existing 30 percent which will create 5 crore jobs in the next few years.
Conclusion
With the “Minimum Government, Maximum Governance” model along with the concept of cooperative
federalism, India is attaining new heights amidst various challenges including Covid-19