"India is at a turning point, takeoff stage where it can grow very rapidly": NITI Aayog CEO after Governing Council meeting

New Delhi [India], May 24 (ANI): India is at a turning point and at a take off stage where it can grow very, very rapidly, NITI Aayog CEO BVR Subrahmanyam said on Saturday and noted that several states have prepared, released or are on the verge of releasing their vision documents that are aligned with national priorities while being grounded in local realities.
Addressing a press conference here after the 10th Governing Council Meeting of NITI Aayog, which was chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Subrahmanyam said India is poised to be the world's third-largest economy in about three years.
"India is at a turning point... I think the country is at a takeoff stage where it can grow very, very rapidly. The Prime Minister gave a call to all states to prepare vision documents at their level and this is already visible in the growth of India. We are the 4th largest economy as I speak. We are a four trillion dollar economy. India today is larger than Japan. If we stick to what is being planned, what is being thought through, it's a matter of another 2.5-3 years, we would become the third largest economy," he said.
"The good thing is that almost 17 states have prepared and released or are on the verge of releasing their visions. Five of them have released visions- UP, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and others will come out by August," he added.
He said that at the last Governing Council meeting, the Prime Minister had given a call for all states to prepare their own state visions.
"The agenda for the meeting was two items apart from an action taken report. Firstly, the theme of the meeting itself and the first item in the agenda was 'Viksit Rajya for Viksit Bharat'. The whole idea is that in the last Governing Council, the Prime Minister had given a call for all states to prepare their own state visions, making their states develop so that they have visions which will then aggregate into a larger vision for the nation. So I think that is what drove the agenda for the last one year and that's why it became the primary theme of today's Governing Council meeting," he said.
Subrahmanyam said that under the overall theme, there were sub themes including manufacturing services, rural, non-farm, urban, informal, and the green economy, as well as circular economy.
He said PM Modi told the meeting that if the Centre and states come together and work as a team, no goal is impossible
"He (PM Modi) said that NITI has been helping a lot of states, and I think this effort should be continued. He talked about how states are the places where action is. So we need to focus on the themes which are there in the agenda. If you want employment, that means you need skilling; you need entrepreneurship. States have to do the action on multiple fronts. Most importantly, they need to focus on manufacturing. They need to focus on services, which means removing a lot of bottlenecks. And what kind of bottlenecks, changing policies, ease of doing business, removing obstacles, and removing obsolete laws, reducing compliance," Subrahmanyam said.
He said PM noted that some states have done a lot at their level, but there is a lot more to be done.
The Prime Minister, he said, talked of creating investment-friendly atmosphere and a friendly competition among states.
PM Modi also urged states to focus on exports and noted that the government is working towards or has concluded FTAs (Free Trade Agreements) with several countries . The Prime Minister emphasised the need to leverage the FTAs.
The theme of the meeting was 'Viksit Rajya for Viksit Bharat@2047". (ANI)