New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday asked the NITI Aayog (National Institution for Transforming India) to frame an ‘investor-friendly charter’, or an index, to rank the investor friendliness of the states.
At the ninth meeting of the NITI Aayog Governing Council, held at Rashtrapati Bhavan Cultural Centre, the PM said the states could look at creating ‘river grids’ at the state level for effective utilisation of water resources. He suggested the goal of ‘zero poverty’ as a priority for a Viksit Bharat by 2047.
The meeting was attended by chief ministers and lieutenant governors of 20 states and six Union Territories (UTs). There were ten absentees, including the CMs of the states that INDIA bloc parties rule, who “boycotted” it to protest the “discriminatory” Union Budget for FY25.
PM Modi asked the Aayog to prepare an ‘investment-friendly charter’ of parameters which would include policies, programmes, and processes to be put in place for attracting investments.
“The states may be monitored on the achievement in these parameters to promote healthy competition among them for attracting investments,” a government statement said.
The NITI Aayog meeting was held to seek the views of the states and UTs on preparing the ‘Vision for Viksit Bharat in 2047’. The ‘approach paper’ observed that the Indian economy, to become a developed nation, needed to strive to be a $30 trillion economy by 2047 with a per capita income of $18,000 per annum. The gross domestic product (GDP) would have to grow nine times from today’s $3.36 trillion and the per capita income would need to rise eight times from today’s $2,392 per annum.
In a critique of the PM’s speech, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said before encouraging foreign direct investment, India needed to trigger a fresh spurt of domestic investment, which marked the Manmohan Singh decade. “You boost DI (domestic investment), and FDI will follow,” Ramesh said. He said FDI has been sluggish since 2014 because of erratic policymaking, senseless demonetisation, the botched goods and services tax, cronyism, and “raid raj” of central probe agencies.
Today’s meeting was also marked by boycott from Congress ruled states and a walk out from West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
