India Economic Forum & LITFest 2022
Backstage: The Story Behind India’s High Growth Years – Montek Singh Ahluwalia
More about the Book, Author & LITFest…
Backstage: The Story Behind India’s High Growth Years’ by Montek Singh Ahluwalia candidly discusses the policy paralysis and allegations of corruption that came to mark the last few years of UPA2. It also delves into successes and failures of the UPA regime during his tenure with Planning Commission as Deputy Chairman. The book presents the story behind India’s spectacular economic growth in the first half of the UPA’s tenure as well as its historic achievements in poverty alleviation.
Narrated with wit, humour and remarkable intellect, backstage is a definitive contribution to India’s economic and political history by one uniquely positioned to write it.
It recollects the journey of India from the LPG reforms to high growth years but may also serve as a cornerstone for India’s future economic thinking by virtue of some of the key ideas it proposes:
- Macroeconomic Stability and the Fiscal Challenge
- Fixing the Banking System
- Accelerating Agricultural Growth
- Employment Generation in a Changing World
- Managing Centre-State Relations and Cooperative Federalism
- The Role of Institutions
Panel Discussion Video
Speakers
Montek Singh Ahluwalia served as one of India’s senior economic policymakers for three decades and played a crucial role in the country’s turn from a state-run to a market-based economy. He was special secretary to Prime Ministers Rajiv Gandhi and V.P. Singh in the 1980s, and commerce secretary and finance secretary in the 1990s. He took a break from the government in 2001 when he was selected by the IMF as the first director of their newly created Independent Evaluation Office. He returned in 2004 to the Government of India as the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, with the rank of a cabinet minister, a position he held up till May 2014. He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second highest civilian honour, by the President of India in 2011 for his outstanding contribution to economic policy and public service.
Radhicka Kapoor is a Fellow at the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER). Prior to joining ICRIER, she worked at the Planning Commission and at the International Labour Organization, Geneva. Her broad areas of research interests include poverty and inequality, labour economics and industrial performance. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the London School of Economics, a Master’s degree from Cambridge University and a Bachelor’s degree from St. Stephens College, University of Delhi.
Dr. Sajjid Chinoy is J.P. Morgan’s Chief India Economist. Prior to that, he worked at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington DC and was a Senior Associate at McKinsey & Company in New York. He served as a member of RBI’s “Expert Committee to Revise and Strengthen the Monetary Policy Framework” that proposed inflation targeting in India, was a consultant to the FRBM Review Committee that recently proposed a new fiscal anchor, and also serves as a member of the Indian Banks Association (IBA) Monetary Policy Group. He was awarded the Consensus Economics’ Forecaster Accuracy Award for 2013. He has authored several publications on the Indian economy including co-editing a book on Indian economic reform: “Reforming India’s External, Fiscal and Financial Policies” with Dr. Anne O. Krueger. He received his Ph.D. in Economics at Stanford University in 2001.
Dr. Shruti Rajagopalan is a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, and a Fellow at the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU School of Law. Before joining the Mercatus Center she was an Associate Professor of Economics at the State University of New York, Purchase College.She earned her Ph.D. in economics from George Mason University. She has a BA (Hons) in Economics and LL.B. from the University of Delhi; and an LL.M. from the European Masters in Law and Economics Program at the University of Hamburg, Ghent University, and the University of Bologna.
Ashwini Deshpande is Professor of Economics and the Founding Director of Centre for Economic Data and Analysis (CEDA) at Ashoka University. Her Ph.D. and early publications have been on the international debt crisis of the 1980s. Subsequently, she has been working on the economics of discrimination and affirmative action, with a focus on caste and gender in India. She is the author of “Grammar of Caste: economic discrimination in contemporary India”, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2011 (Hardcover) and 2017 (Paperback); and “Affirmative Action in India”, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, Oxford India Short Introductions series, 2013. She received the EXIM Bank award for outstanding dissertation (now called the IERA Award) in 1994, and the 2007 VKRV Rao Award for Indian economists under 45.
Mr. Pradeep S Mehta (72) is the founder and Secretary General of the Jaipur-based Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS International), leading economic policy research, advocacy and networking, a non-governmental group in India, with offices in Nairobi, Lusaka, Hanoi, Accra, Geneva and Washington DC. CUTS was established in 1983 and has completed 35 glorious years. Currently, he is a Member of the CII’s International Trade Policy Council. He has served as: Member of the Board of Trade; Better Regulatory Advisory Group; and Steering Committee on Ecomark; Think Tank on the “Framework for a National Policy on E-commerce” of the Government of India. Among several advisory positions, he has been and/or is an honorary Adviser to the Commerce and Industries Minister of India, Trade, Commerce & Industry Minister of Zambia and to the Director General of the WTO.
Pranjul Bhandari is the Chief India Economist at HSBC Securities & Capital Markets (India) Private Limited. She is responsible for developing the firm’s position on macroeconomics and public policy in India, leading the firm’s economics research franchise from Mumbai. Pranjul is part of the Research team based in Mumbai. Prior to joining HSBC, Pranjul completed a resident fellowship at the IMF in Washington DC after graduating as a Mason Fellow from the Harvard Kennedy School. Previously, she worked at India’s Ministry of Finance with the Chief Economic Advisor and at the Planning Commission with the Deputy Chairman. She has held roles as an economist covering Asian markets at Goldman Sachs and at UK’s Department for International Development. Pranjul also holds a Master’s in Economics from the University of Cambridge, UK and a BA in Economics from St.Stephen’s College, New Delhi.
Vinay Sitapati is an associate professor of political science and legal studies at Ashoka University. He has degrees from National Law School Bangalore and Harvard University, and a PhD in politics from Princeton University. He has written for publications as diverse as the Economic & Political Weekly, International New York Times, The Indian Express, Harvard BlackLetter Law Journal, The Hindu, Harvard Crimson, Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution, and Seminar.
Panel Discussion Agenda
Montek Singh Ahluwalia
Former Deputy Chairman
Planning Commission
Radhicka Kapoor
Senior Visiting Fellow
ICRIER
Sajjid Chinoy
MD and Chief India Economist
J P Morgan
Shruti Rajagopalan
Senior Research Fellow
Mercatus Center
Ashwini Deshpande
Professor of Economics
Ashoka University
Pradeep S Mehta
Author & Secretary General
CUTS International
Pranjul Bhandari
MD & Chief Economist
HSBC
Vinay Sitapati
Visiting Professor, Politics Dept
Princeton University
Arbitration & Gatishakti
BIMCAN PROVIDE GATITO GATI SHAKTI
Time and cost overruns; lack of collaborative, clearly documented project design and management; administrative and judicial delays are bane of infrasructure projects
The union & the state governments in India are increasingly relying upon large expenditure on infrastructure as the key to getting the Indian Economy’s growth story back on track after the COVID-induced slump. The National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) has outlined an investment of Rs 111 lakh crore for 2020-25. The PM Gati Shakti initiative intends to bring the diverse synergies of different government infrastructure departments together using technological and logistical streamlining. Infrastructure projects in India are often marred by significant time and cost overruns leading to long-drawn-out legal battles and commercial disputes. How technological, legal and administrative reforms can be the foundational cornerstones for India’s infrastructure growth and much more was discussed at the session on Arbitration& Gati Shakti at the India Law Forum organised by SKOCH Group
INFRASTRUCTURE DELAYS & GATI SHAKTI
The current economic environment has presented a plethora of complex challenges for policy makers to deal with. Unemployment, rising inflation and increasing liabilities for state governments coupled with falling revenues have created an economic reality that calls for a wider reset in terms of policy planning and execution. With the Union government at its helm, Gati Shakti initiative plans to solve multiple issues related to infrastructure construction and management in India. However, in its current state, Gati Shakti initiative is just a portal that contains designs and other related details for various projects.
To solve multiple challenges faced by the infrastructure sector in India, Gati Shakti has to evolve into a platform that offers efficient and well-directed solutions to major issues such as time and cost overruns and resultant judicial and legal ramifications. The increased cost of projects because of delays is not the only aspect of this problem, infrastructure-related legal battles continue to drag on for years making states one of the biggest litigators in India. If spending on infrastructure has to lead to economic growth for India, there have to be dedicated policy interventions, especially in the area of technology to smoothen out existing roadblocks and pave the way for on-time implementation of infrastructure projects. Speaking at the session Pranay Lekhi, Legal Advisor, International Arbitration, Allen & Overy, UK remarked, “How India manages to deal with the increasingly frequent infrastructure and construction disputes will determine the success of India’s growth story.”
BIM AND ISSUES WITH INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS IN INDIA
Revamp is needed in the administrative, legal and technological areas to find solutions to issues linked with infrastructure projects. However, more often than not technological changes are easier and faster to bring about legal or administrative changes. In terms of the use of technology in the construction of infrastructure projects, the level of technology prevalence is abysmally low. A significant number of projects in India still use paper-based techno drawings, compared to technology-oriented project management like in other parts of the world. Sameer Kochhar, Chairman, SKOCH Group said, “BIM can help in figuring out, through a knowledge based argument to have a real-time view of where the bottlenecks are.” By using BIM, impediments that cause time and cost overruns in these projects can be rooted out in the planning/pre-construction phase so that the projects are commissioned in time, he added.
BIM is a digital model of a building that stores data and information digitally and helps to optimise projects with integrated analysis, generative design, visualisation and simulation tools. The use of BIM to create a collaborative data platform that stores all the information about a construction project from day one in terms of designs and other contractual details can be the way forward to empower the Gati Shakti into a holistic solution to re-engineer the issues regarding infrastructural delays. Sunil Mawkin, Counsel, Allen & Overy, UK also highlighted the issue saying, “Getting the design right from the very start is fundamental for the long- term success of construction projects.” If it is ensured via collaborative and technology-backed platforms that there are no structural and design flaws from the outset of the project, then time and cost escalations can be avoided.
Platforms such as Gati Shakti not only should include data from government infra projects but also take inputs from the private sector as an active partner both in terms of data sharing and project implementation. M Ramachandran, Distinguished Fellow, SKOCH Development Foundation and former Secretary, GoI also expressed optimism on this and said, “Subsequently private projects can also be onboarded onto the Gati Shakti portal.” This can work wonders to bring the much-needed synergy that the Gati Shakti initiative is trying to achieve.
There also have to be concerted efforts to upskill the small and medium players in the construction industry with technology so that they do not fall behind the big players in the industry. M K Sunil, Country Manager(AEC), Autodesk India said, “Large construction companies have started using the technology that leads to transparency and accountability, but small and medium players still don’t deploy technology optimally in the construction space.” To truly empower the construction sector there has to be widespread adoption of technological measures by the smaller players as well. It has been estimated that the use of BIM can help in reducing construction costs due to delays and result in saving trillions of rupees for the taxpayer and the exchequer. There has to be active stakeholder contribution from the government, industry and private sector alike to translate the idea of Gati Shakti into a successful project with measurable outcomes.
RECOMMENDATIONS
- If India has to speed up its return to a higher economic growth trajectory, technological, legal and administrative reforms in infrastructure are a must.
- India has to catch up with the best global industry standards and best practices related to infrastructure and adopt emerging technologies to derive the maximum benefit out of government expenditure on infrastructure.
- As of now, Gati Shakti platform remains a web portal with project details from government ministries. A collaborative effort involving the private sector is required for it to become an effective tool for structural transformation.
- How India manages to reduce its skyrocketing infrastructure project costs and delays will have a major impact on how much investable the infrastructure sectors become in India.
- Efficient technological interventions such as BIM can root out structural flaws and bottlenecks from the time a project is commenced, leading to few disputes and fewer legal battles.
- Dedicated efforts are required to ensure that the use of new technology is actively encouraged, due processes need to be created so that technological advancements do not get stuck into an operational quagmire.
- Concerted efforts are required both from the government and industry to make technology an important part of the Gati Shakti initiative so that its desired goals are achieved.
- In light of the upcoming mediation legislation, it would be prudent to incorporate the use of technology that covers the project lifecycle and documentation for fact-based evidence