India’s Plan for Post-Pandemic Economy Is a Risky Ploy
Modi has ambitions to harness his country’s youth. But if things go wrong, progress might skip a generation.
Nirmala Sitharaman, India's finance minister, center, presented the country’s budget on Feb. 1, 2022.
Photographer: Bloomberg/BloombergThis being the 75th year of India’s independence, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government decided to market its annual budget as a blueprint for the next quarter century. “GatiShakti,” which is Hindi for kinetic energy, is Modi’s idea for speeding up the movement of goods and people. Nothing wrong with that long-term focus on productivity, except that the success or failure of this year’s spending plan would be judged by how well it harnesses the potential energy of India’s young workforce.
When it comes to this more immediate goal of reviving jobs in the post-pandemic economy, the budget has one big idea: infrastructure. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman says she will attract private investment by stepping up capital expenditure, which is forecast to jump by 25% in the fiscal year that starts on April 1 to 7.5 trillion rupees ($100 billion).