India needs all stakeholders to grow, even enterprises and civil society: ITC's Sanjiv Puri

India needs all stakeholders to grow, even enterprises and civil society: ITC’s Sanjiv Puri

It is widely acknowledged that this is India’s moment. There is a growing groundswell of opinion that India, over the next five years, would become the third-largest economy in the world and recent forecasts indicate that it could well be a $7-trillion economy by 2030. The bold climate commitments, including the net-zero goal, underline India’s response to the existential crisis of climate change and frequent extreme weather events that threaten to undermine progress. Thus, India is forging a new growth paradigm of a low carbon development model that is unique and unprecedented, posing challenges of a much higher order of magnitude compared to any of the growth models witnessed hitherto.

While the challenges are many, we are at the cusp of an era that is full of opportunities. Favourable demographics, rising incomes, urbanisation and aspirational consumers on one hand, and the evolving world of AI, digital, rapid technology development on the other have pervasive implications across the economy. It is evident that competitiveness is central to reaping the benefits of India’s strengths and achieving the Prime Minister’s inspiring vision of Amrit Kaal, which envisages rapid growth with social equity and environmental sustainability. I would term this approach as Responsible Competitiveness.

No single organ of society can accomplish all of this and, hence, partnerships hold the key—partnerships that leverage complementary strengths and enable meaningful contribution, not only from governments but also from all organs of society including enterprises and civil society.

In this context, certain megatrends promise to provide a springboard to create new vectors of growth: digital, sustainability and innovation. Several big-ticket policy reforms, which were set in motion over the past few years, have been leveraging these megatrends. To illustrate with an example, India’s digital stack is receiving global recognition for its population-scale capabilities. This powerful digital infrastructure has unlocked efficiencies both financial and operational, facilitated inclusion, enabled upskilling, created new business models, empowered the economy and promoted fair and transparent governance. Going forward, the potential impact is even greater:

(a) As a medium to connect: For example, ONDC opening up markets through domestic and cross-border e-commerce particularly for MSMEs and micro-enterprises.

(b) As a medium to lower logistics costs as demonstrated by the Unified Logistics Interface Platform (ULIP)

(c) And as a medium to enhance productivity through effective service delivery, e.g. Skill India and Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission

Similarly, relating to sustainability, the slew of policy initiatives have set the nation on a firm path of green growth and innovation, particularly relating to energy transition. The pathways to clean energy require new supply chains to be built, requiring deep collaboration between government, industry, research institutes, service providers and many more. Initiatives like Mission Hydrogen can unlock private capital and open up new market opportunities. Civil society can also partner in the national effort through Mission LiFE and green credit. There is also a growing realisation of the importance of adaptation and building resilience across the various sectors of the economy, especially among the most vulnerable.

Indian enterprises can play a leading role as a catalyst for leveraging the power of partnerships towards addressing the complex growth agenda. As the economic engine of society, Indian enterprises tend to be better placed to garner and allocate resources efficiently, generate a multiplier effect and reduce drags and friction across value chain partners. This proposition is best understood through some sectoral examples of significant opportunities. Inherent in these examples are various partnerships involving farmers, large enterprises, MSMEs, governments, research institutions and a range of service providers spanning testing laboratories, logistics providers, training services and many more.

India has huge potential in the agri-food sector, given its inherent strengths. While the government can contribute through policy, enterprises can invest in translating market signals into productive output and in creating capacity among farmers through inputs such as climate-smart agriculture. Such an approach will boost investment, ensure viability, and align the value chain constituents.

Similarly, a partnered approach to creating a competitive wood-based industry can generate large economic multipliers, enable significant carbon sequestration and livelihood generation. Our country has 30 million hectares of degraded forest land capable of being converted into productive and green assets. An enabling policy framework that would permit enterprises to lease degraded forest land will attract investment and innovation in silviculture, enhance competitiveness, spawn new wood-based industries, enable import substitution to the tune of $4 billion annually, create large carbon sinks and generate significant rural employment of nearly 1.3 billion person-days.

These sectoral examples link industry with agri and wood value chains and contribute to the cause of ‘manufacturing competitiveness’. Similar opportunities can be created in the services sector, which has been leading economic growth and exports in recent years. In this context, tourism represents a sector with immense opportunity. The finance minister announced in the Union Budget the development of 50 tourist destinations as part of focussed initiatives to realise the potential of the Indian tourism industry. As per estimates, the industry can generate $60 billion and create 60 million jobs by 2030. An enabling policy framework, together with a partnered approach across industry, governments at central and state levels, MSMEs and other constituents, can crowd in private investment, spark capacity building and guest handling and soft skills training and other services, and set in motion a significant and inclusive economic multiplier.

Each of these opportunity areas represents a pathway to securing growth with sustainability and shared prosperity. More importantly, it will provide large-scale opportunities to productively engage a wide spectrum of skill sets besides providing significant avenues for migration of agrarian skills to adjacent, higher order livelihoods. A partnered approach can hasten the realisation of our shared national vision. This would be a worthy agenda not only for the next five years but also well beyond.

The author is Chairman and MD of ITC Limited. Views are personal

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