This topic is probably been done already before, but I will state some simple thoughts. Am open to answers..
Many future predictions, specially HSBC and Deustche bank predictions mention India's GDP growth to surpass all other countries by 2045/2050, largely considering the India's population as its strength !
Did anyone know, we would all be chatting away on Facebook 25 years back ?
Anyways, I doubt whether the population is a strength.
Here's why.
1. Food: Already the vegetable rates are interesting, wonder where they will go. All the big shots Pranab Mukherjee, PM Manmohan Singh etc. have said this is due to change in dietary patterns. I have my doubts. I think it is largely due to politically powerful intermediaries holding Indians at ransom. But if these politicians are right, just think what direct cash transfers will do.
2. Water: Already the average distance a rural Indian woman travels for fresh data water is in kilometers. Wonder where they will get all this water from. And yet we encourage soft drink companies..
The rest of the points are all infrastructure :
Electricity: Already we face a huge shortage in many states. Combine this with a) politically motivated oppositions to nuclear plants b) families splitting/ purchasing capacity increasing resulting in smaller families in a increased number of home units. c) increased white goods - refrigerators, washing machines, dishwashers, microwave owens, televisions, laptops and cellphones. and it makes you wonder what will so many people do without electricity
Transport : Trains are overflowing, people fall off buses, we are nowhere near setting up regulation for water travel. what will we do ?
Waste Management: Even smaller towns are facing a real estate boom. But where are the sewers, the dry , wet, medical and toxic waste disposal systems ? Even Mumbai does not have a mature waste disposal system yet.
Education: Insufficient schools combined with insufficient teachers combined with dated education framework.
Skills: So much of a population and still corporates crib about absence of manpower, simply put, an absence of usable skills development framework.
Well, we now do have NSDC, but looking at the government's history of execution, we can very well rest assured, the current youth between 15 and 25 will not be capitalising on this initiative. An entire generation unemployed.
Combine all these above points with reduced manpower requirements due to progress in technology and increase in automation.
It now takes less than 1/3rd number of people to produce the same number of cars as it did in 1950's. e.g. Ford needed 0.5 million employees to produce 4.5 million cars, which it can now produce with around 80,000 employees !!
And now what we are doing to fix this: we have schemes like MNREGA which will give out dole to people instead of setting up or fixing skill development/auditing of government affairs OR simply execution capability improvement.
Doing a root cause analysis, it points to simply ONE thing: Insufficient government capabilities of strategy and execution.
It now takes less than 1/3rd number of people to produce the same number of cars as it did in 1950's. e.g. Ford needed 0.5 million employees to produce 4.5 million cars, which it can now produce with around 80,000 employees !!
And now what we are doing to fix this: we have schemes like MNREGA which will give out dole to people instead of setting up or fixing skill development/auditing of government affairs OR simply execution capability improvement.
Doing a root cause analysis, it points to simply ONE thing: Insufficient government capabilities of strategy and execution.
Combine this with the cultural diversity we have, and we know this is a long and a very crowded journey...
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