Asserting that even the government cannot stop the high growth rate of Indian economy, a senior official on Monday said the manufacturing and services sectors were steering it ahead and farmers set to adopt market-oriented agricultural practices.
"The current growth is sustainable as it is being driven by real forces. The growth genie is out of the bottle and even the government cannot stop it now," Vijay Kelkar, economic advisor to Finance Minister, said at a seminar in New Delhi.
He said the present growth rate is sustainable as development in all quarters including IT has reached even the remote areas of the country.
Better economic policies of the government including state government who have realised that economic reforms were inevitable, Kelkar said that networking of rural areas through roads, telecom, electricity and rivers would help maintain the current phase of surge that the country is witnessing.
He, however, admitted that agriculture will play a pivotal role in driving India's economy in the coming decades.
He said that the present 'feel good' factor that is pervasive in India was for real as there was a growth genie propelling the economy.
Speaking at the 3rd CII Asia Pacific Executive Forum, he said that after the first Green Revolution that met calorie requirement of the masses, the second would result in meeting the nutrition requirements and the farmers would adopt agricultural practices suitable for the market demands in this regard.
ITC Chairman Y C Deveshwar said digital connectivity of rural India would provide a backbone to the country's economy and unless the people in villages are involved in the country's growth process, development would merely remain economic and fail to be an inclusive growth.
Deveshwar said that agricultural productivity was low in India because of small farm sizes and also primarily because it remains largely rainfed. He said that the propensity to spend is only half with 'ruralities' as compared to that of 'urbanities.'
It was therefore imperative to bestow confidence on the ruralities to spend, which in turn will have a grand effect on the economy, he said.
He called on to make technology accessible to the farmers and empower them along with a host of farmers.