India cannot build infrastructure and generate economic growth at the pace of state-led China as it has a different model of growth where the emphasis is on people-oriented policies, Minister for Science and Technology Kapil Sibal said in Beijing on Monday.
"There is a different model of growth in our country. In a society which is somewhat different, you can get a lot of people to move out without access to courts of law, without stay orders from courts, get the system going," he said at a meeting organised by the World Economic Forum on the sidelines of the 'China Business Summit 2006'.
Referring to the gleaming financial hub of Pudong, he said, "We can't, for example, build a Pudong overnight".
"Our democracy tells us, our rural areas tell us, the electoral verdict will tell us that if you don't have growth with equity, we will throw you out of power," he told global business leaders at an interactive breakfast session on India: Opportunities and Challenges' organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry in Beijing.
China, where the land belongs to the state, has built world-class infrastructure and top-class buildings, often uprooting and relocating millions of peoples from their homes.
Pudong, the gleaming financial hub in the eastern metropolis, Shanghai was built in a short time, pouring billions of dollars.
"You can build infrastructure and generate economic growth. I think in India, it is not going to happen. Economic growth and infrastructure will go hand in hand with
opportunities and growth. It is not to come before growth because it is not an export-led economy. India is a home-based consumption economy," Sibal emphasised.
"What it means for the Indian economy is that economic growth has to be matched with equity," Sibal said.
Economic growth is being around the country and not concentrated in major cities. "If you look at the growth of China and that of India, qualitatively there is a great difference," he said.
The growth of China is state-led. Led by the enormous power of the state which has opened up the Chinese economy and allowed it to grow in this fabulous rate." If you look at India, it is market-led. It is not state-led, he said.
India, demographically young, has 547 million people who are less than 25 years of age. By 2030, India will have 80 per cent of the workforce. This is an enormous opportunity as 80 per cent of the then 1.2 billion people is large number of people if we can empower them, the minister said.
With the population of Europe declining, there will be a 'vacuum' which will mean that the work force generated in other parts of the world will have to be absorbed, he said.
"This is also a great opportunity as what you export is just not productivity but also culture, way of living, way of thinking and tolerance as well," Sibal said.
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