India needs non-political talent, economists to tide over crisis: PC

Setting the context for the conversation that followed, Chidambaram said, “As we celebrated India’s 70th Republic Day in January this year, abject poverty should have been reduced to the absolute minimum, say 3 to 5 per cent of the population. India should have become a middle-income country with a per capita income of $4,000. Intra state and inter state issues should have been, by and large resolved. The use or misuse of religion should have been ruthlessly curbed.”

Undoubtedly there have been impressive achievements too, said Chidambaram citing, “India remains a democracy.” The lawyer-politician believes that the biggest challenge faced by the nation was the under performance on the economic front. Referring to former CEA Arvind Subramanian’s remarks that the economy was headed to the ICU, Chidambaram said that this was certainly not an ordinary slowdown or a cyclical problem. “Instead, it’s a structural problem with cyclical aspects built into it,” he said.

Chidambaram also expressed his anguish over the aspect of retrospective tax which is now dogging telecom majors in the country. He drew special attention to the state of the rural economy as well. Highlighting the fact that rural consumption had come down by 20 pc and that rural wages have dropped drastically as well, he said rural poverty is deep set within India. Offering remedies to alleviate this situation, he remarked that there is a need to have at least six distinguished economists who can be counted upon to offer proper counsel to the Centre. Referring to Raghuram Rajan, former Governor, RBI, he said, the need of the hour seems to be to hire “non-political talent” which seems to be abundantly available in India. He also said great universities, R&D capabilities and innovation helped the US maintain its stronghold over the world economy, and there’s a lot to be learnt there.