Aspirational Districts, Equity, Sunrise Industries: Amitabh Kant's 3-Point Mantra for a Rising India

New Delhi: News18 Network's Rising India Summit on Monday witnessed Niti Aayog's CEO Amitabh Kant listing out a three-point agenda for "unparalleled growth" for the country.

He narrowed down his focus on sunrise industries, growth in equity and working on aspirational districts to be India's path for clocking growth at above 8 per cent a year.

"We need to change our outlook. We now need to focus more on sunrise industries that will get us growth," said Kant at Rising India's second edition on Monday.

Identifying electric vehicles as one of the sunrise industries, he said a new policy framework on mobility will be put up within a fortnight.

When quizzed on the essentials behind accelerating growth, Kant said, "If you have to grow at 9 to 10 per cent, you cannot grow at that rate if you do not have growth in equity."

The gross domestic product (GDP) for India in 2017-18 saw an upward revision to 7.2 per cent from the earlier 6.7 per cent.

Earlier, the CEO had pegged the GDP growth rate for 2018-19 at 7.2 per cent.

Kant further said that India also needed to keep in mind that many Indian districts were lacking. "This is why we came up with aspirational districts."

The aspirational district programme was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 5, 2018.

It aims to rapidly transform districts that have shown relatively lesser progress in key social areas and have emerged as pockets of under-development.

The development areas for aspirational districts include health and nutrition, education, agriculture and water resources, financial inclusion, skill development, and basic infrastructure.