SHILLONG: Bloomberg columnist, financial journalist and author, Mihir Sharma has asserted that increase in population of the working age was fuelling the country’s growth but the same factor can lead to negative impact in 15-20 years.
Sharma was speaking on the topic ‘Restarting the Indian Economy: Formal vs Informal: Why it matters, and how demonetization factors in’ at the Eclectic Ananta Speaker Series here on Tuesday. The Eclectic Ananta Speaker Series is an initiative to bring leading international and national opinion makers and thought leaders to Northeast India. The event was brought to Meghalaya in partnership with Group Avenues, North East India’s pioneering personal growth and youth development training organisation.
“Growth can come from increasing resources, increasing capital and increasing productivity but in our case, it comes from increase in working age population. However, in 15-20 years, this will go against us like what happened in China. Our working age population will decrease and growth will shrink”, he said.
Speaking about how India is still an informal economy, he said, “Between 85-90% of Indian workforce is in informal economy. In China, it is 25% while in Bangladesh it is 35-45%. Textile is known as one of the most dynamic sector because it is labour intensive.”
“When our Prime Minister talks about ‘Make in India’, it has to do with the fact that we don’t have enough factories and majority of our people are working in the informal sector,” he said.
According to Sharma, liberalisation took away lot of jobs in India.
The manufacturing sector is stagnant though other sectors like agriculture is growing and when India took the policy of liberalisation, country’s market got flooded with products from outside, he observed.
“We started buying products from foreign brands because they were cheaper and better. But, it also meant that a lot of the products which were earlier made in India found no takers. As a result, factories got shut down and people lost their jobs,” he added.
The dialogue saw the participation of civil society, students and faculty from city based campuses. Toki Blah, President, ICARE also summarised his concerns on the shift from a social welfare state as we progress from an informal economy to a formal economy.
Other speakers included Ram Muivah, Secretary, North Eastern Council, Aiban Swer, MD, Meghalaya Institute of Governance, Mark Laitflang Stone, founder MD of Group Avenues, Monotosh Sarma Roy DGM, SME SBI and Hasina Kharbhih, Founder -Impulse and Fellow Ananta Aspen Centre for Introduction of Ananta.
The event which was moderated by Dr Natalie West Kharkongor, Associate Professor of IIM, Shillong, and was supported by the Meghalaya Institute of Governance and the North Eastern Council.
