SME Times News Bureau | 07 Jul, 2020
NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant on Tuesday emphasized that India will
soon bounce back from COVID-19.
Addressing a session, Kant said,
"We are already witnessing emergence of green shoots in the economy. We are
seeing that key sectors like FMCG, etc. have already come back. I am optimistic
that we will bounce back with vengeance."
He further said that India must identify 12-13 sectors in which it
can be a global champion. "All of us need to be very clear that the
pandemic is a massive challenge not just for India but for the world. Every
crisis is also an opportunity. We must pick-up areas of growth, which will help
us emerge as winners for tomorrow," said Kant.
Elaborating on the potential areas, he said that the key
areas will include data, AI, genomics, mobility, drones, creative industry
along with media and entertainment, will be key drivers of growth. "These
sectors will take India to a sustained level of growth in the next 10-12 years
and create a vast number of jobs," he added.
Kant further stated that while COVID-19 has brought in
the 'New Normal', it will be innovation, which will
be the key in the new normal. The people who will survive will be those who
will work with technology, capturing the sunrise sectors of growth while data
and the use of AI will drive the growth, he said.
"India, often gets into the areas of sunset industries and
then it becomes difficult to penetrate the global market's size and scale.
India will get into the new areas of growth and these areas will have huge
disruptions," Kant said.
Enumerating the importance of Atmanirbhar Bharat program launched
by the government, he said that through this, the government has brought
radical reforms in various sectors like MSME, agriculture, etc. 'Atmanirbhar
Bharat is not about isolation. It is about becoming a global champion," he
said.
On the role of public and private sector partnerships, he said
that the role of technology and the use of digital platforms is increasing.
"We are in touch with the private sector to build super apps
in areas like education, health, agriculture. Our objective will be that the
business model will be of the private sector and the government backing will
give them the size and scale to reach domestic as well as global markets,"
added Kant.
Highlighting the importance of data, Kant said that in
India, we are seeing data at very low-price points. India's usage of data will
be enormous. "We need to move from the scale of data to becoming data
intelligent in the years to come. This would require us to leapfrog in the
world of Artificial Intelligence," he asserted.
Kant said that use of blockchain can act as a
game-changer in solving many critical problems related to the huge pendency in
civil courts or land related matters.
"We need to use blockchain and get into real time monitoring
of these issues. These are some of the areas where India must technologically
leapfrog, and it is critical for India's long-term ability to grow at high
rates consistently," he added.