75 Years of India's Economic Development: Evaluation, Challenges, and Way forward

Abstract

After 75 years of India's Independence, India is now one of the fastest-growing economies; hot FDI destinations of the World; India is the sixth-largest economy globally, with a GDP of $2.66 trillion. India is the world's largest producer of milk, pulses, and jute and ranks as the second-largest producer of rice, wheat, sugarcane, groundnut, vegetables, fruit, and cotton. It is also one of the leading producers of spices, fish, poultry, livestock, and plantation crops. (FAO 2018), It also produced 25 percent of the world's pulses, as of last decade, until 2019. (1BEF, 2021) Whereas India still has many areas of concern. Despite having food security, India has 97.7 million living below the poverty line, which is around 6 percent of the population in 2021, as per the World Poverty Clock.; India's rank is 66 out of 109 countries in United Nations Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2021: India ranked 101st out of 116 countries in the Global Hunger Index 2021. India ranked 131 out of 189 countries on the U.N. Human Development Index 2020; India ranked 139 out of 149 countries in U.N. World Happiness Index 2021. In this research article, the data of major socio-economic factors are analyzed to track the journey of India's growth in the past 75 years and has analyzed it using simple statistical tools like percentage and growth rate. The data about 75 years of India's Independence, GDP, Per capita Income Growth, Capital formation, Savings, Foreign Trade, Agriculture, Indebtedness, Industry, MSME, Infrastructure, Poverty, Inequality are analyzed, and meaningful analyses were drawn. The Challenges to the Indian economy, the way forward, and the lessons India can learn from China and South Korea are also discussed. India can surge ahead to its potential and celebrate the 100th year of India's Independence as a World Economic Superpower if India invests 6 percent of its GDP in imparting quality skill education, 4 percent of its GDP on providing quality health; increase the domestic capital formation to 40 percent, create world-class.