India is 15% of solution G20 is looking for economic growth: Jaishankar

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday said India is "15 per cent of the solution" the G20 is looking for in terms of economic growth and development.

He was speaking at the Festival of Thinkers, an event organized by Symbiosis International University here. The minister cited managing director of the International Monetary Fund Kristalina Georgieva's statement that in "otherwise a fairly gloomy global economic scenario" India's GDP base is growing at seven percent and is likely to increase in the coming decade.

"Kristalina Georgieva tells that 15 percent of the world's growth this year is going to come from India, that means we are 15 percent of the solution that the G20 is looking for in terms of economic growth and development, but it isn't just growth, the G20 is actually looking at how we handled the COVID challenges," said Jaishankar. India's G20 presidency began in December 2022.

The G20 countries have noted India's success in effectively vaccinating its vast population against coronavirus, he said.

"Getting shots in the arms" looks very easy, but there are countries which struggled to get it done while the world has seen that India managed to vaccinate all eligible persons, Jaishankar said. "For them, it is a staggering achievement, it is a staggering achievement with the smoothness and organization with which it was done," he added. Soon after COVID-19 became a global concern in January 2020, "there was a sense of the briefing to the G20 that if there is any place in the world (that) is going (to) go under because of COVID, it is India," the minister said. "A set of very serious people" who had studied global health concluded that India's health system, governance and ability as society would not allow it to deal with the pandemic, and "three years later, we showed them to be so wrong," he said.

Today the same people marvel at how India "managed society, how the country fed people during that period, how money was put in the bank account of people," Jaishankar said.

Aadhaar has become "a magic number", and is "actually the backbone on which the daily existence of hundreds of millions of people (hinges), he said.

"If the world today has expectations, the contribution of India, it is the economic contribution that is underpinned by enormous governance record, especially in digital delivery," he said.