Innovation and infrastructure will help India to become $5-trillion economy: Piyush Goyal

By OEM Update Editorial January 9, 2020 4:53 pm IST

The Indian Railways plans to invest $700 billion through partnerships, joint ventures and collaborations to strengthen infrastructure and reach the farthest corners of the country in the next 12 years, said the Commerce and Industry & Railways Minister Piyush Goyal in New Delhi. He was addressing ASSOCHAM, which is celebrating 100 years, about strengthening India’s global positioning. In his address, he urged the Indian industry to be in constant dialogue with the government so that all the problems and hurdles that industry and business face today may be dealt with, facilitating the government’s commitment for a better India, for the 1.3 billion aspirational citizens who are looking for a better quality of life, to be met at the earliest.

Government of India will be a facilitator and an enabler for industry and entrepreneurship to ensure that harassment at the hands of government functionaries, both at the Centre and the States, comes to an end. For this, Goyal urged ASSOCHAM, with its over 4 lakh members, to give feedback that will help the government both at the Centre and the States to look at regulatory, non-regulatory, judicial and any other impediments that are roadblocks for industry and entrepreneurship. He also urged the industry to adopt and encourage innovation by funding research and development and work closely with academia so that India may become a true innovation nation where startups can flourish and become positive disruptors in the industry by creating more jobs for the youth of the country. He gave the example of the US and China that have more than 4,200 and 1,200 researchers respectively, while India has only 216 researchers per million people.