100 crore vaccination to further speed up India’s economic recovery: Vineet Agarwal

INTERNATIONAL DESK: India’s one billion-plus vaccination has boosted consumer confidence and could drive the economy to a double-digit growth in this financial year, provided that a third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic does not play havoc, said Assocham president Vineet Agarwal.

“The one billion vaccines that have been administered have really helped people to think about not just going out and spending but also planning for the future in a more optimistic manner,” Agarwal said in an interview to ET. “Our estimate is that we will grow around 10%, plus or minus a few basis points, based on how things progress and whether there is a third wave or not.”

Aarwal said a large section of unvaccinated people including children could, however, pose a challenge to India’s recovery. Not just India, the industry anticipates a slowdown in global recovery too which may not augur well for merchandise exports from India, he said.

“Global recovery could also slow down because a lot of it is pent-up demand. Once that tends to normalise, will people still spend or consume as much as they were earlier?” asked Agarwal.

Talking about the response of the industry, both domestic and global, to multiple schemes like the production-linked incentive scheme, the national infrastructure pipeline, the national demonetisation plan and the PM Gati Shakti programme, the Assocham president said these schemes have created a lot of excitement among investors globally.

“All of these things have created a great visibility on the future plans of India, which means that a large source of investments in the long-term is possible,” said Agarwal.

He said the national single-window platform for all clearances, the whole payment infrastructure and the logistics stack that is getting created means that the ease of doing business is dramatically improving in India.

“I think these are great stepping stones towards attracting those large investments, and I am very confident that we will only see accelerated foreign direct investments into India from now onwards,” said Agarwal.

Talking about revival in the labour market, he said, “With improvement in capacity utilisation, seasonal trends as well as the overall positiveness that we are able to travel from anywhere to anywhere in the country has meant that employment has started to inch up definitely.”

(The Economic Times)