How has India managed the growth it has despite the constraints it has faced? Fascinating in all this talk about India and India Vs China is how different really have been the models of growth followed by these two nations. India has followed a bottom up approach to growth as opposed to a top-down approach pursued by China.
Let me explain - China has seen the govt lead through initiatives and the people following. A top-down approach. India on the other hand has seen people lead and the govt follow. A bottom-up view. And bottom-up growth is chaotic and ugly. Because infrastructure usually, is a govt concern and not a private one. Wish things were simpler...
Also a lot of talk about infrastructure gets focussed around roads, ports & power. Infrastructure, to my mind, is of two types -
- Hard infrastructure - roads, water, sanitation, housing, commercial development, ports, airports, bridges, rail networks, telecom
- Soft infrastructure - health, schools, colleges and institutes of higher learning
We simply cannot afford to ignore aspects of soft infrastructure. Come to think of it, the one sector which India is really known for globally is IT right? Now, growth in IT made another "IT" famous - The IIT. What this means is that economic growth in one area (IT) which led to some development in hard infrastructure (Telecom) was largely based in soft infrastructure (IIT).
To enable the next step in creating high employment (India needs to create 12 million jobs a year) we will have to look towards manufacturing - and another piece of soft infrastructure should enable that. The ITI...
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