New Delhi: India needs well-balanced growth in which the service, industrial and agricultural sectors reinforce each other as the present economic model was skewed with insufficient employment opportunities to the poor, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, head of biotechnology enterprise Biocon, said here on Saturday.
Delivering the 25th Intelligence Bureau centenary endowment lecture on “The Role of Biotechnology in Inclusive Economic Development”, Mazumdar -Shaw said agriculture accounts for about 52 per cent of employment but contributes 14 per cent to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
“Today we have a skewed economic model wherein India’s service industry accounts for nearly 58 percent of the country’s GDP while the industrial and agricultural sectors contribute 28 per cent and 14 per cent respectively. The sectoral structure of India’s growth has provided insufficient employment opportunities to the poor,” she said.
She said the country was passing through turbulent and transformational times as it was transitioning from rural, agrarian economy to a urban, modern economy.
Kiran Mazumdar Shaw said aspirations were burning across the sections of society fuelled by urbanisation and access to technology.
“When these are not realised, resentment stokes the yearnings of the disadvantaged. We must ensure that the benefits of growth reach every citizen of India. If inequity reigns and hopes die, our efforts to create a prosperous India will not bear fruit,” she said.
The technocrat, who has been awarded Padma Bhushan, said the economy was facing strain due to external and internal factors and were reflective of pain enveloping the country.
She said basic needs of the majority of Indian population “remain unsatisfied with unacceptable levels of hunger, illiteracy and jobless existence, creating a vicious cycle of poverty and despair.”
Mazumdar-Shaw said the country should have a clear roadmap of “where we want our economy to be in 2050.”
She said bio-technology can usher in a second green revolution with unprecedented opportunities to ensure food security along with the economic well-being of the farmer.
