NITI Aayog releases Strategy for New India @ 75

Why in news?

  •  The NITI Aayog has unveiled its comprehensive national Strategy for New India, which defines clear objectives for 2022-23.

Strategy for New India @ 75:

  • It is a detailed exposition across forty-one crucial areas that recognize the progress already made, identifies binding constraints, and suggests the way forward for achieving the clearly stated objectives.
  • It is an attempt to bring innovation, technology, enterprise and efficient management together, at the core of policy formulation and implementation.
  • It will encourage discussion and debate, and invite feedback for further refining our policy approach.

Objective:

  • The Strategy document aims to further improve the policy environment in which private investors and other stakeholders can contribute their fullest towards achieving the goals set out for New India 2022 and propel India towards a USD 5 trillion economy by 2030.

Key recommendations:

  • The forty-one chapters in the document have been dis-aggregated under four sections: Drivers, Infrastructure, Inclusion and Governance.

Drivers:

  • Steadily accelerate the economy to achieve a GDP growth rate of about 8 percent on average during 2018-23. This will raise the economy’s size in real terms from USD 2.7trillion in 2017-18 to nearly USD 4 trillion by 2022-23.
  • In agriculture, shift the emphasis to converting farmers to ‘agripreneurs’ by further expanding e-National Agriculture Markets and replacing the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee Act with the Agricultural Produce and Livestock Marketing Act.
  • Give a strong push to ‘Zero Budget Natural Farming’ techniques that reduce costs, improve land quality and increase farmers’ incomes.
  • To ensure maximum employment creation, complete codification of labor laws; and upscale and expand apprenticeships.
  • Launch a mission “Explore in India” by revamping minerals exploration and licensing policy.

Infrastructure:

  • Expedite the establishment of the Rail Development Authority (RDA), which is already approved.
  • Double the share of freight transported by coastal shipping and inland waterways.
  • Develop an IT-enabled platform for integrating different modes of transport and promoting multi-modal and digitised mobility.
  • Deliver all government services at the state, district, and gram panchayat level digitally by2022-23. With the completion of the Bharat Net programme in 2019, all 2.5 lakh gram panchayats will be digitally connected.
  • The three themes in this section revolve around the dimensions of health, education and mainstreaming of traditionally marginalised sections of the population.

Inclusion:

  • Successfully implementing the Ayushman Bharat programme including the establishment of 150000 health and wellness centres across the country, and rolling out the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Abhiyaan (PM-JAY).
  • Create a focal point for public health at the central level with state counterparts.
  • Upgrade the quality of the school education system and skills, including the creation of a new innovation ecosystem at the ground level by establishing at least 10,000 Atal Tinkering Labs by 2020.
  • Conceptualise an electronic national educational registry for tracking each child’s learning outcomes.
  • As already done in rural areas, give a huge push to affordable housing in urban areas to improve workers’ living conditions.

Governance:

  • Implement the recommendations of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission as a prelude to appointing a successor for designing reforms in the changing context of emerging technologies.
  • Set up a new autonomous body ‘Arbitration Council of India’ to grade arbitral institutions and accredit arbitrators to make the arbitration process cost effective and speedy/
  •  Address the backlog of pending cases.
  •   Expand the scope of Swachh Bharat Mission to cover initiatives for landfills, plastic waste and municipal waste and generating wealth from waste.

Other recommendations:

  • With ‘Strategy for New India @ 75′, Niti Aayog aims to accelerate growth to 9-10 percent and make India a USD 5 trillion economy by 2030.
  • The development strategy includes doubling of farmers’ income, boosting ‘Make in India’, upgrading the science, technology and innovation ecosystem, and promoting sectors like fintech and tourism.
  •  NITI Aayog prescribed reducing upper age limit to join the civil services to 27 years from the present 30 years for General Category candidates by 2022-23 in a phased manner and also to have one integrated exam for all civil services.
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