India’s US $ 5 trillion economy dream shattered for now due to pandemic: Rangarajan

Former RBI Governor and Chancellor of ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education Dr. Rangarajan opined that with the pandemic, the hope that India would be a US $ 5 trillion economy by 2025 became elusive

Former RBI Governor and Chancellor of ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education Dr. Rangarajan opined that with the pandemic, the hope that India would be a US $ 5 trillion economy by 2025 became elusive and economy, which was US $ 2.7 trillion in 2019, would be around the same by 2022.

Country needs to grow at 9% for five consecutive years to be a US $ 5 trillion economy and the government needs to strive to achieve this growth by bringing in reforms, he said, while speaking at the 11th convocation of the ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education held virtually.

Dr. Rangarajan said economies around the world suffered due to lockdown and India’s GDP fell by 7.3% in 2021 impacting daily wage earners, and migrant labourers the most. After contracting 24.4% in the first quarter of 2020-21, the economy witnessed a real growth of 20.1% in the first quarter of 2021-22. But compared to 2019-20 GDP fell by ₹3.3 lakh crore. He was positive about the country achieving annual growth of 9.5% as forecast by RBI and IMF, but the foundation for faster growth needs to be laid now.