India's Leap-frogging Strategy for Growth

India has strategically exploited new technologies to address development gaps and spur economic growth. Under Modi's dynamic leadership our policymakers have adopted  leap-frogging as a possible strategy for driving growth.

India has bypassed traditional stages of development to jump directly to the latest technologies and explore alternative paths of technological development involving emerging technologies with new benefits and new opportunities.

This clear strategy to drive economic development has paid rich dividends during the last 8 years of Modi's strong and stable governance creating an enabling environment for building a high-tech, modern economy. 

As a result, India is rapidly transitioning to a knowledge-based economy built on digital services and high value-add production.

Ambitious Programs

Digital India, Make in India, Startup India are not mere slogans of PM Modi's administration but are spurring the hopes and aspirations of thousands of youths:

• Digital India is a flagship program of the Government of India with a vision to transform the country into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy.

• Make in India is an initiative by the Government of India to make and encourage companies to develop, manufacture, and assemble products made in India. 

It is designed to facilitate investment, foster innovation, enhance skill development, protect intellectual property, and build best in class manufacturing infrastructure in the country.

• Startup India is a flagship initiative of the Government of India, intended to build a strong eco-system for nurturing innovation and Startups in the country that will drive sustainable economic growth and generate large scale employment opportunities.

The Startup India Seed Fund Scheme (SISFS) provides financial assistance to startups for proof of concept, prototype development, product trials, market entry and commercialization. Rs 945 crore has been allocated under the scheme for a period of four years starting from 2021-22.

Sustained government efforts in this direction have resulted in increasing the number of recognized Startups from 726 in FY 2016-17 to 65,861 in FY 2021-22. This is spread across 56 diversified sectors such as IT services, finance technology, technology hardware, enterprise software, artificial intelligence, drone technology, and nanotechnology.

According to a PwC report, over 50 Indian Startups have the potential to enter the Unicorn Club (startups valued at over $1 billion each) in 2022. The year 2021 saw the emergence of 44 Startup Unicorns against a cumulative number of 33 unicorns from 2011 to 2020.

The symbiotic development of Mobile Phones and UPI Payment services has created several innovative financial services, together with ingenious business models and flexible regulatory approaches. 

India's ubiquitous UPI payment system has placed the country as the top users of mobile payment services in the world. This has been made possible with JAM Trinity - Jan Dhan Yojana, Aadhaar, and Mobile number. See the numbers here:

• 1.4 billion population of the country
• 1.5 billion Mobile Users (with 748 million smartphones)
• 1.3 billion Aadhaar unique ID issued
• 295 million Jan Dhan bank accounts

Just 3 days back, PM Modi inaugurated the Headquarters of the Indian National Center for Space Promotion and Authorization (IN-SPACe) in Ahmedabad.

Today, in the space sector there are close to 60 Indian companies who have come forward to participate in different fields covering space applications, satellite launches, Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle and rocket designs. 

See more details about two of these prestigious programs:

India is Country Of The Year at VivaTech 2022 : Europe’s Biggest Startup and Tech Event will take place on June 15-18, 2022 at Paris, France.

India Will Roll Out A New Space Policy : Its main objective is to bring reforms in the space sector by opening it up for greater participation from the private industries.