Need to respect India’s diversity, says KT Rama Rao

Demogoguery and insulting our institutions or people would not propel India into first world's orbit, he said at a fireside chat as part of the Kakatiya Sandbox programme here on Saturday.

Nizamabad: Stating that democracy is India’s asset, Industries Minister KT Rama Rao stressed on the need to respect the country’s diversity.

Demogoguery and insulting our institutions or people would not propel India into first world’s orbit, he said at a fireside chat as part of the Kakatiya Sandbox programme here on Saturday.

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China and India had almost similar GDPs in the 1980s. China was now a 16 trillion dollar economy and India was still a three trillion dollar economy. This was mainly due to China focusing on development and India’s focus was on politics and development took a backseat, he said.

Sharing his experiences from recent visit to the World Economic Forum, Davos, the Minister said world over, countries realized the over dependency on China and have slowly started moving away from China.

This gives a great opportunity for India to leverage and surge ahead. India needs to diversify more into manufacturing, services and other sectors. And, India has a great asset in the form of young think force, he explained.

“Innovators irrespective of their gender, age, region and religion should be given equal and inclusive opportunities to propel India into first world’s orbit,” Rama Rao said.

Capital was no more a challenge. Markets were ready to lap the right kind of products. People, especially youth have to think big and global. They should move on from being job seekers to becoming job providers. Parents should promote entrepreneurship among their children, he stressed.

On involving more private people into the administration, the Minister said bureaucracy in India was more about administrative capabilities.

Pushing bureaucracy into private sector for a short term and engaging private professionals would be a right model of administration, he said, adding a performance appraisal system needs to be introduced in the public sector as well.

Regarding promotion of women leaders, the Minister pointed out that Telangana Government has already 50 percent women representation in Gram Panchayats, Zilla Parishad and Municipalities.

Telangana had also demanded for 33 percent reservation for women in Parliament and State Legislatures by it was not tabled by the BJP government at the Centre, he said, hoping it would be tabled soon.