Probably all of us have, at some point of time or the other, wistfully wondered what more we could have achieved if we just had a few more opportunities. Lately, most sectors have been facing a setback, and the question has to be asked: can nothing be done to set this situation right?
India has been labelled as a developing country for years now, and yet, for some reason, we still don’t get to see the “development” in its entirety. Let’s look at it this way. We have been in the process of building up all the aspects of this country since independence, for the last seventy-three years. It is not like there aren’t adequate talents in this country, because, on the international platform, achievements for India aren’t rare. The country has an impressive collection of natural talent that, ideally, could have pushed the country far ahead in the race. But that doesn’t seem to be happening.
The government continuously launches schemes, designs projects and announces plans that will prioritise the growth and development of the country. Of course, like it is characteristic of every government scheme, these often have fallen short of adequate on more than a few parameters, and that undoes a large part of whatever good intentions these schemes have, but if correctly executed by those in power and utilised by those they are meant for, these schemes can yield unprecedented positive results in terms of economic and social welfare.
Let’s take, for example, the Make in India initiative. In 2014, it was perceived that India was falling short in terms of economic gains, in comparison with the other stakeholders of international trade. The Prime Minister launched the Make in India campaign, which was meant to boost India’s situation out of the bracket of the “fragile five”. It was pointed out that the reason that India is falling short in this case, is the country’s excessive dependence on foreign countries for imported goods. The solution would be to manufacture these goods within the national economy itself and refrain from helping other countries off of the large Indian market. But the problem with this government initiative arose when the government set goals for growth rates that were simply unachievable for a country that has, to date, relied too heavily upon other countries for a large number of commodities. While this was meant to alleviate the prospect of employment and increase the GDP of the country, the issue was in the fact that Indian manufacturers didn’t have adequate technological backing to attain the same level of efficiency in production at the same low price ranges. If production isn’t smooth and the financial turnout isn’t satisfactory, then manufacturers might lose their impetus. Similarly, consumers dislike the idea of having to pay more than was necessary, for commodities that often fail to suffice for the demand.
When startup India was launched in 2016, it took the same kind of trajectory. It aimed at boosting individual participation in the economy. The government promised a funding pool, gave certain tax exemptions and made certain amendments in the law in favour of startups, to give them the support they need to work individually so that collectively, the startup businesses can find a stronger footing and do their bit to bring the economy back on its feet. But Startup India action plan soon brought its loopholes to the forefront when the realization set in that it would be very cumbersome to prove that a business indeed qualifies as a “startup” by the plan’s definition of a start-up business, among a thousand other drawbacks, like inefficient management of allocated funds and basic lack luster execution.
With the Government’s ambitious Digital India initiative, the problem lay not in what can be done next, but in what has already been done. For a government plan that has quite a straightforward narrative and had been launched five years ago, one would expect it to work out fairly well. The idea of digitizing most regular activities like financial give-and-take, interactions with government offices, bank work, and even part-time jobs, it could have put all the technological advancement to good use for the common man. The motive might have been good, but what no one was prepared to take into account was the fact that India’s technological situation was simply not good or efficient enough for this kind of a plan to work out. Smooth banking work was not possible because machines turned dysfunctional and software began to crash, for example. The “power to empower” ideal didn’t sail smoothly because the vast majority of the country’s citizens don’t have the resources to access and abet digitization on a scale that would be required for this idea to take shape, and this posed as the major problem about the Digital India initiative.
The Government needs to look into these gaping flaws in their plans without fail. While the inequality of the distribution of wealth leads to a major hurdle in case of successful completion of any of these initiatives, other problems include inefficiency of management, corrupted handling of funds and lack of outreach to underprivileged demographics.
Initiatives like these could be more than sufficient for the nation’s progress in several sectors, especially since it already has its fair share of talent. All they need is an opportunity to give wings to their dreams~ as the nation, collectively, takes flight!
