Seshasayee echoes serious concern on growth rate sustainability

New Delhi, May 12 (UNI) Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) President R Seshasayee today expressed serious concern as to whether India will be able sustain the current growth rate of 8 per cent.

''All forums in the world are talking about the India story and it was being projected arithmetically that by 2050, India would be the second largest economy in the world. However, there are serious concerns about the sustainability of this growth rate,'' he said.

He was speaking at the prize distribution ceremony for a new initiative of the CII National Essay Competition on 'Leveraging ICT for Inclusive and Sustained Economic Growth in India', here.

He pointed out that both India and China were consuming more than double of their bio-capacity.

This is an unacceptable level of resource consumption and as we go forward on the path, ''we will become little more gluttonous in our consumption of power thus damaging the eco system'', he added.

Mr Seshasayee said that increased prices of steel and oil was the price India was paying for its high population and said that ICT was a handy tool to counter this by taking a leapfrog into the future if it used this technology to prevent damage to the eco system.

''Inclusiveness was also a very important factor of growth in a country like India where 50 per cent of its population was below the poverty line. Equitable distribution of wealth that we talk about means that we must first create wealth and then find ways of its distribution,'' he remarked.

He stated that ICT had been a part of the strategy of CII so that India could teach the world qualitative means of growth rather than just quantitative growth.

UNI MP RA VC1935