India aspires to and moving towards a $5 tn economy: PM

Mumbai, Feb 18 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday reiterated that India aspires to, and is moving towards, a $5 trillion economy over the next few years with sustained, comprehensive and holistic development.

Inaugurating the first mega global investors summit, "Magnetic Maharashtra: Convergence 2018" here, he said the country is on the firm path of development simultaneously with the development of the states.

"We are working towards becoming a member of the Five Trillion Dollar club," Modi said.

He also said Maharashtra would become the first state in India to become a Trillion Dollar economy in the next few years, while addressing a gathering of over 200 captains of Indian and global companies at Bandra Kurla Complex here.

Modi noted his government has taken a slew of steps to ensure all-round development of India with an ecosystem omprising a development-friendly, investor-friendly governance with minimal governmental interference.

Indian states are now policy-driven, governance is performance-driven with full accountability, a transparent ecosystem, various norms are being eased, the government is changing laws where needed, and scrapped more than 1,400 old or outdated laws, and for new or modified laws, care is being taken to ensure they are simplified, he said.

In recent years, various states of India have also competing among themselves to attract maximum foreign investments as per their needs and requirements, including Assam, he said.

On Maharashtra, Modi said during the past three years, this state has initiated unprecedented measures to lure foreign investors on all fronts, led by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

"The state's reforms have transformed business, huge improvements in its rating in Ease of Doing Business, changed the work culture, problems are being resolved in a timebound manner, debottle-necking has been achieved with inter-departmental cooperation, all of which have reflected on its development," he said.

He added that last year Maharashtra led other states on various parameters in infrastructure development rankings, it got 51 percent of all FDI in India, during the Make In India initiative of February 2016, it secured more than Rs 400,000 crore investments and work on half of them is underway.

Besides, the state has initiated mega-infrastructure projects like Navi Mumbai International Airport, Mumbai Trans Harbour Link, 350 km of Metro Rail and similar Metro Rail in other cities like Pune and Nagpur, taking up the 700 km Mumbai-Nagpur Communication Expressway, etc, which will create between two to two-and-half million jobs and give a fillip to rural development.

Modi also cited the various measures and budgetary provisions to construct roads, bridges, metro rails and airports across the country, to help realize "the aspirations of the people" and fulfill the vision of a 'New India'.

Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani said Mumbai is both his 'janmabhoomi' (birthplace) and his own 'karmabhoomi' (are of action) where the start-up company was established by his father, the late visionary Dhirubhai Ambani with a seed capital of Rs 1,000 and one employee.

"Today, Reliance employs over 350,000 people. It's the largest 'wealth-creator for India'. Reliance always invests in India's Big Dreams in building businesses of the future with Indian talent and Indian youth," he said in his address.

He said Mumbai is also home to Jio, the newest tech-startup in the Reliance family, and when the PM unveiled his vision for a Digital India, it also became Jio's own mission.

He announced that now Reliance will take the Jio Movement forward with an even more ambitious new initiative for New India and New Maharashtra, by setting up the country's first-ever 'Integrated Industrial Development Area' for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in Maharashtra.