Need for greater core funding felt

A panel discussion on where India would be by 2025, held here at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, underlined that while investment in infrastructure needed to increase substantially and the government's fiscal deficit had to be controlled, equally important was to capitalise on India's democratic traditions as a competitive advantage and push through rapid reforms in civil services and the judiciary.

Several business leaders, from India and other countries, felt that there was need to create a platform for equitable growth and evolve a new business model using the high technology-low cost advantages that India offered. The major risks the business leaders saw in India were the problem of governance and energy availability.

Many of them felt that the fears arising out of the outsourcing backlash were exaggerated. There were also concerns over how the different states would respond to the need for reforms and how governance could be improved through their reorganisation.

Some leaders pointed out that a sudden increase in sectarian violence could upset the calculations for achieving a consistent annual growth rate of 8 per cent.

There was also a call for making the growth process more inclusive by recognising the concerns of India's large rural population and sharing with them information on how government resources were being spent ontheir development.

The government had to focus on issues such as water conservation and exploitation of non-conventional energy sources.