India’s PCI needs to rise 8-fold by 2047: Panagariya

Vijayawada: India must increase its gross national income (GNI) per capita nearly eightfold—from 2,540 dollar in 2023 to transition into a high-income economy by 2047, said Prof Arvind Panagariya, chairman of the 16th Finance Commission of India. Delivering a lecture at IIT Tirupati, he stated that this ambitious goal would require a sustained average annual growth rate of 7.8% over the next 24 years.
Speaking on the theme ‘India in the Global Economy: The Next Decade,' Prof Panagariya laid out a roadmap for India's economic transformation. He emphasised that the country already showed resilience by maintaining high growth rates of eight to nine percent in the previous decades, despite challenges such as the global financial crisis, Covid-19 pandemic, and domestic fiscal pressures.
Prof Panagariya identified three key drivers of future growth—increasing per capita income through innovation and technology adoption, leveraging the demographic dividend with a large and young workforce, and sustaining momentum in infrastructure and reforms. He cited landmark projects like the Atal Setu and the new Parliament building as examples of India's growing project execution capacity.
Addressing concerns about underemployment, chairman of the 16th Finance Commission of India stressed the need to transition workers from low-productivity micro-enterprises to more productive firms. He advocated for critical reforms in labour and land policies to encourage private sector growth. In response to audience' questions, he acknowledged the manufacturing sector's slow progress and called for scaling up medium-sized enterprises and improving industry-led skilling. On climate policy, he urged India to focus on pollution control and renewable energy as dual objectives.
The lecture, hosted by IIT Tirupati's department of humanities and social sciences, concluded with an optimistic outlook for India's economy reaching nine to10 trillion dollar in the next decade.