The Path to Higher Growth

AT THE OPEN HOUSE with the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in New Delhi on February 3, organ­ised by the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group, industry leaders and experts analysed at length India’s growth trajectory.

In a panel discussion on key sectors driving India’s growth, Preeti Bajaj, CEO and MD, Luminous Power Technolo­gies, emphasised that renewable energy remains a priority sector for the government. A key indicator of this was allocation for the PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana—the government’s flagship renewable energy programme—being raised to ₹20,000 crore from ₹11,000 crore. “The government has definitely produced a Budget of resolve, of resilience and of the rise of the consumer spending ability,” Bajaj said. She called it “India’s New Growth Engines”, adding that the focus must now be on the efficiency of project deployment.

Manish Sharma, chairman, Panasonic Life Solutions India and South Asia, said that while semiconductors are a critical enabler of this growth, the country must adopt a “parallel approach” and focus on strengthening the entire electronics ecosystem. He added that the focus should now be on intellectual property (IP) and design to enhance India’s control over technology development.

Building on this, Sachin Chopra, founder and CEO, Alphavector, used the analogy of Taj Mahal and the Great Wall of China, highlight­ing that the country can never match China in scale and should not fo­cus on imitation, but on design. “We got to focus on power electronic, and on AI consumption,” he said. Vineet Agarwal, MD, Transport Corporation of India, said that the Budget’s focus on consumption will have a multiplier effect, particularly in relation to infrastruc­ture investment, consumer demand, and private sector growth.

In another panel discussion on ‘India @ 2047: The Roadmap to Viksit Bharat’, Ritu Arora, CEO and CIO Asia Pacific, Allianz Investment Management, said that India was poised to be a very large global economy. “It’s not a matter of if, it’s only a matter of when. Pillars such as investment, consumption and demograph­ics are all falling in place.”

Barnik Chitran Maitra, founding partner, Chrysalis Capital, said that all engines of the economy—domestic consumption, public investment, private capital formation, and exports— should be firing if the country has to grow at 8 per cent.

Market veteran Vijay Kedia, however, argued that Indian needs to grow at a rate higher than 8 per cent to be at the Viksit Bharat level by 2047. He was optimistic on artificial intelligence (AI) and said that India isn’t late to the AI race. “What happened in IT ser­vices makes me believe that we will catch up with the rest of the world and become a leader in AI,” he said.

With the new income-tax regime offering tax cuts to the middle class, Maitra said India’s growth story rests on the common man. “₹ 1 lakh crore of tax foregone will now be in the hands of customers. The Indian consumer should be confident to spend this money,” he said. Arora was also betting on consumption to drive economic growth. “Many large economies have a consumption rate that out­does the savings rate. It is healthy for the economy,” she said.

Kedia, however, cautioned that just a tax rebate is not going to solve India’s problems. India needed to create 1 crore new jobs every year, he said. Maitra agreed, adding, “The jobs will get created when there is capacity addition.”

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharamanindustry leadersOpen House 2025Union Budget 2025Viksit Bharat