Design govt jobs to reduce their economically perverse attraction for millions of applicants, turn larger villages into new towns, change cropping patterns & reverse the economic squeezing of the middle class usually don't recommend moving the goal posts to win the match, but in the case of Viksit Bharat I think it is the only way to go. What, after all, does it mean to be developed? To be rich like the US, a society so suffused with anger against self-confident women, successful immigrants (like me), uppity Black people and no doubt many others that the entire vocabulary of the state is dominated by words of violence and destruction?

Where else do govt leaders celebrate feeding the life work of so many of their colleagues into "wood-chippers" and immigrants are repatriated in chains, feeding the blood lust of those who voted this new govt into office? Or to be like China, the land of skyscrapers and highways and bullet trains, but also peeping-tom cameras at every turn ensuring compliance to a monolithic state?

My hope for India is that we will have the courage to be different, to set our own targets and ideals. And not just because, as many have said, the goal of raising per capita GDP by a factor of five in the next 22 years seems remote, especially given the post-Trump mess in the global economy. Our growth seems to be slowing, and while I am happy to leave the debate on whether this is temporary or structural to those more willing (and perhaps able) to read the tea leaves, it remains that reaching the 2047 GDP goal we have set for ourselves would require us to grow faster than we have ever grown on a sustained basis, in a world economy that is not exactly looking great.

Nor does it seem plausible that we will be able to build Chinese style infrastructure any time soon. I don't exactly know how they came up with this number but the World Bank estimates that India needs to spend Rs 4.6 lakh crore on urban infrastructure to meet the growing needs of the population every year until 2036. Right now, the govt investment is close to a quarter of that. The Bank says that private investment will need to step in for the rest, but doesn't seem to believe that it will happen.

I am not sure that this changes very much in terms of economic policies. There are still the standard economists' to-dos: improving education, health and the investment climate, enhancing connectivity and raising productivity. To that I add a few more key steps, also not particularly original, but perhaps not discussed enough.

RATIONALISING THE GOVT

The lives of our young are dominated by a testocracy masquerading as meritocracy. In the National Sample Survey, young men who have more than high school education show a striking pattern: through their mid-20s, instead of going to work, a third to a half of them are neither working nor looking for work. Instead they claim to be studying, though only about 10% actually go for postgraduate degrees. The rest are preparing for the many gateway exams that regulate access to those "good positions", as teachers, bankers and bureaucrats, that most Indian middle-class families dream of. And for most of them it is just a dream- less than 1/3 of 1% of the 220 million applications for central govt jobs between 2014 and 2024 resulted in a job, according to govt | sources, and surely for the weaker 80% of that massive applicant pool this probability is really zero. If they are still applying, it is mostly a way to postpone the unpleasant moment when they accept that they too will not get one of those prized jobs.

From the point of the macroeconomy, these years spent honing test-taking skills and memorising random facts (like who is Abhijit Banerjee?) is a pure waste. Moreover, by its very design it produces millions of failures, scarred for life.

The way to fix this problem is not to get rid of the exams, but to drastically reduce the premium that people put on these jobs. Indian govt teachers, for example, are among the best paid in the world, relative to per capita GDP. No wonder people are willing to spend several years getting a B.Ed and then several more in trying for those coveted jobs, and we end up with teachers who are good at taking exams, but not necessarily passionate about teaching, especially since once they have the job there is not much pressure to perform. It would be more efficient and equitable to replace the current system where you are either in or out, with a system of apprenticeship where everyone who gets through the exam gets a job that pays market wages and is guaranteed only for five years. Promotion to a permanent teacher paid civil service wages only happens after that, based on performance during the early phase. The job would be less coveted, and hence reduce the obsession with test success and we would get more teachers who love the work.

The same idea should also ap ply to all other govt jobs, with the exception of the Army. This might sound paradoxical since the recent Agnipath scheme tries to do something similar to what I am proposing but just for the Army. But to me the lowest rungs of the Army are more like a skilling programme, an alternative to our inadequate post-secondary offerings: they recruit athletic teenagers with limited education and train them in a range of useful skills (including leadership and life skills). And very little time gets wasted on mugging up for tests.

Introducing a trial period would drastically reduce the cost of an entry-level civil servant and allow the hiring of many more than under the current system; I argue below that we in fact need those extra hands.

REIMAGINING OUR CITIES

If we can't have shiny modern skyscraper cities what can we have? Roads without potholes, walkable footpaths, trash-free residential neighbourhoods. sewers that don't stink, drains that drain, public playgrounds for children - less costly new investments, better maintenance and more committed urban leadership.

A part of what we need to get there is to implement the 74th amendment that was meant to be the pathway to urban self-governance. Municipal leaders with much more control over the resources they raise will raise more resources (in particular from real estate taxes) and compete harder to spend the money well.

But the bulk of the transformation can come from turning our many larger villages, many with populations of 10,000 or more, which would make them a medium-sized town in the US for example, into cities. The advantage is that land is still very cheap and abundant relative to our big cities, and the infrastructure needs to be built mostly from scratch and therefore can take full advantage of modern technological advances. Policy can help by coordinating the creation of an (appropriately chosen) industrial zone that connects to one or more of these new towns. There is compelling evidence from Tishara Garg's recent research at MIT that this particular form of industrial policy works and generates substantial productivity gains.

Right now, however, the incentives are all wrong. Rural residents have access to better welfare schemes, rural leaders have more control over re-sources. No one wants their village to become a town. We need a set of policy changes that level that playground.

Once that happens, we will need boots on the ground that will help make these new cities into the kind of places we want. My experience with the gram panchayats is that the political leadership often lacks bureaucratic support. To help the many nascent towns succeed we will need a cadre of effective city managers helping the elected leaders. This is where the proposal above to hire many civil servants on a trial basis, dovetails with this idea- the new towns could become the venue for a large fraction of the entry-level "trial" jobs.

CLEANING UP ENVIRONMENTAL MESS

Our environmental challenges are coming to a head. Living in many of the north Indian cities, especially in the winter months, is pure murder- it is calculated that life expectancy in Delhi could have been seven years more had air quality met the WHO standards. We have dire drinking water problems in many cities, including many where there is no dearth of rainwater.

Both Bengaluru and Chennai get more than twice as much rain as famously wet London. The water-table in Punjab and Haryana is falling fast, thanks to the growing of summer rice that is entirely climate unsuitable; the burning of these rice stalks then creates the killer smogs that are choking Delhi. Drainage in many cities is failing, thanks to irresponsible construction that interrupts drainage channels and the piling up of garbage inside the sewers.

These issues are well-known and there is a lot of agreement on the solutions - we need to stop incentivising rice cultivation in hot dry areas through our price support system, harvest rainwater better; regulate construction to limit interference with the system of drainage and the production of dust and so on. Politics is of course one reason they don't happen, but the lack of governance capacity is also an issue. Once again, an expanded entry. level bureaucracy can help here.

COMBATING INEQUALITY

The govt's position is that inequality is going down. And indeed this is what the data shows. Unfortunately, what it means is entirely something else.

As anyone who uses Indian survey data knows, most surveys almost entirely miss the richest few percent, because the surveyors can't get into their houses/gated communities, and even if they manage, they are politely asked to come back later. Therefore, the rich in the data are merely the high end of the middle classes. And what the data is saying is that the middle classes are getting squeezed, which is consistent with the flat demand for low- to mid-range vehicles and the current emphasis on premiumisation, which is a fancy way to describe products that only the very rich can afford. And if the middle classes are lagging and the less affluent are also struggling (as the govt recognised with its tax break) where is the growth going? It is the very rich that are taking it, evidenced, for one, by the rapid rise of high-end restaurants all over India and fancy international tourism (I recently watched a group of desi teenagers buying a couple hundred dollars of Dubai Chocolate, while I waited in line to get just one).

The tax cut is at best a temporary remedy for needs money to build the India that we want. We still get most of our tax revenue from indirect taxes, which tend to be regressive. The real remedy is to plug the loop. holes that allow the rich to get away without paying their fair share of taxes. In particular all too many of our rich live and sell in India but seem to pay taxes in Dubai or Mauritius or other tax havens. We have to stop that, along with the option of declaring that your businesses are losing so much money that you don't need to pay taxes while spending millions on cars or parties. Moreover, we need mechanisms that trans. late burgeoning profits into wage and employment growth, something that, as the govt's Economic Survey points out, is not happening right now (this is why middle classes are falling behind).

On the other side I am flabbergasted by the views of two Supreme Court justices that we are creating a class of parasites through our redistributive policies. We spend less than 1.2% of GDP on the main welfare schemes. To put this in perspective, this is about half of the increase in the profit share between 2003 and 2024. More importantly we should never forget that most poor people in India are poor because they never had a chance- born into the caste system, educated in our lackadaisical educational institutions, rejected by our sclerotic formal labour markets.

The general point is that our current process of development is creating many exclusions - between the very rich and everyone else, between those who get the good jobs and those who just take the exams, between those who can afford to live in first- and second-tier cities and the rest, between those who get running water at home and can afford the air purifiers and everyone else, and so on. We cannot be a good society without addressing those. Urgently.

The writer won the Nobel prize in economics in 2019

"India's journey to Viksit Bharat calls for transformative innovation that touches every citizen. Through TOl's Ideas for India platform, we are championing a nationwide movement to co-create solutions across four critical themes: health, social progress, economic growth, and India for the world. This vision resonates deeply with our mission at Optum - to help people live healthier lives and make the health system work better for everyone. By combining inclusive innovation with our purpose-driven approach, we aim to build a future where ideas translate into action and innovation delivers real, sustainable change." - Uma Ratnam Krishnan | MD, OPTUM INDIA

Five Key Innovations That Can Transform India.

Affordable technologies that can clean dirty water, deliver piped water to every family, produce green batteries that use domestically found minerals, get accurate data to farmers, and cut project delays

In 1714, the British Empire faced a crippling challenge: ships could not determine longitude at sea. The then British govt responded with the Longitude Prize, which spurred breakthroughs like John Harrison's marine chronometer and transformed navigation. As a result of this innovation, the sun never set on the British Empire for the next 200 years. That was the impact of innovation. Centuries later, the United States applied a similar approach when DARPA (Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency) catalysed the creation of technologies like the internet, GPS, and autonomous vehicles by backing innovators and acting as the first big buyer. The lesson is clear: when govts set bold problems and back solutions at scale, they unlock innovations that reshape nations.

Today, India faces its own innovation gap. Despite a thriving startup ecosystem and an enviable demographic dividend, we lag in producing transformative technologies. We file patents but do not commercialise them. In 2023, India paid $14.3 billion in IPR outflows but earned only $1.5 billion in receipts, a recovery rate of just 11%, down from 14% in 2014. Our R&D spend remains 0.65% of GDP, far below South Korea, Israel, or the US. Research institutions and entrepreneurs operate in silos, limiting the flow of knowledge from lab market.

The govt has recognised this gap and rolled out ambitious initiatives. The Rs 1 lakh crore Anusandhan National Research Fund supports basic research and prototypes. The India AI Mission seeks to build leadership in artificial intelligence. A dedicated DeepTech Fund of Funds will pool capital for risky but transformative startups. These measures are vital first steps, but to truly transform India's innovation landscape, we must do more.

India is at the cusp of the largest infrastructure build-out anywhere in the world. Our ambition to grow from a $4 trillion to a $30+ trillion economy by 2047 cannot be met through incrementalism. Instead, we need to spotlight national innovations, nation-scale problems whose solutions can catapult India into global leadership. And unlike in the past, we now have a powerful new tool: artificial intelligence and machine learning, powered by vast Indian datasets. What was not possible yesterday is possible today.

These innovations must be bold, time-bound, and designed to tackle the problems that hold India back every single day:

SEWAGE-FREE INDIA

Untreated sewage is India's single most significant source of water pollution, contaminating rivers, groundwater, and impacting public health. We need an innovative device to convert waste into safe manure, biogas, and clean water. We can dramatically cut water-borne diseases while keeping the household cost of the device to just Rs 25,000.

SAFE WATER FOR MILLIONS

As of mid-2025, 81% of rural households have tap water connections under the Jal Jeevan Mission. We must invent a low-cost spectrometer that measures TDS, heavy metals, nitrates, phosphates, and microbial indicators, records result in structured datasets, and leverages AI to monitor and predict water quality.

This will be the next step in making clean water available for all at just Rs 4 per 20 litres per family.

LIGHT GREEN BATTERY

India's clean energy transition is hampered by dependence on battery imports. We must build a durable battery for both mobility and energy storage. It must be designed around minerals available in India, or in abundance globally, that double battery life and drive clean energy adoption.

SMART AGRICULTURE

Millions of Indian farmers remain vulnerable to rainfall variability, soil degradation, and market unpredictability.

Every single Indian farmer must be provided with precise advice on their mobile app, which integrates soil, water, weather, and price data and connects them to real-time markets to enable them to get the best returns.

120-DAY FLYOVERS/UNDERPASSES

Infrastructure delays choke our cities, increase costs, and slow growth. We must complete flyovers and tunnels within 120 days, 60 days of designing and planning, 30 days of preparation, and 30 days of rapid construction, cutting costs by 30% and transforming urban mobility.

These are not Utopian ideas. They are practical, high-impact areas where Indian innovators can deliver globally competitive solutions - if given the right push. For such innovations to succeed, we need three things:

First, political and administrative will. Just as digital public infrastructure, bank account opening, and digital payments were driven with relentless focus, these innovations require top-level ownership. A single empowered agency should curate the problems, provide mentorship, track delivery, and procure technology.

Second, govt procurement reform. India's innovators need scale to thrive. The govt must consolidate demand and become the first buyer of technology. Committing substantial outlays for successful technologies, ensuring updated codes and procurement norms will truly ensure 'Make in India' for these products. Govt being the first buyer is critical.

Third, a pro-innovator ecosystem. We must throw open these problems to the world to find solutions. Consortia must be Indian-headquartered, with a majority Indian ownership and manufacturing. This ensures that when we solve national problems, the value accrues to Indian

companies and workers, not foreign intermediaries. Export incentives and global positioning can then ensure our innovations spread worldwide.

If India embraces this model, the payoff will be transformative. Just as the Longitude Prize shaped Britain's naval supremacy, and DARPA made the US a technology superpower, national innovations can turn India into a hub of problem-solving innovation.

But the impact will not stop at our borders. The Global South, home to over five billion people, faces the same challenges: sewage, water, energy, agricultural productivity and speedy infrastructure development. Western nations have largely lost the capacity for mass-scale infrastructure building; India still has it. If we pioneer low-cost, scalable solutions to these common problems, others will follow. In doing so, India can become not just an economic leader, but also a model for inclusive innovation across the developing world.

This is not charity. It is strategy. By solving our problems, we solve theirs. And by leading the Global South into a new era of innovation, we also ensure that India's growth is resilient, competitive, and globally relevant. We must now throw open the challenge of change to our innovators- set bold targets, back them with resources, and give them the freedom to think differently, even to fail. This is how we will build an innovative India. This is how India will leapfrog into the future. This is how we change not only India, but the world.

The author was India's G20 Sherpa and is a former NITI Aayog CEO

Full details on sessions at: www.toiideasforindia.com