Planning Commission member Narendra Jadhav said today that the China model of development was not suitable for India, although the former was the fastest growing economy of the world.
Talking to Business Standard, he said, “The China model of development is basically manufacturing-led economy, financed mainly by portfolio and foreign direct investment.”
“The model of development that we follow in India is quite different, which is not entirely dependent upon foreign capital, but mainly domestic sources of funding,” Jadhav said.
He maintained that although India lagged behind China in several economic and development parameters, our economy had several inherent strengths.
“The financial sector of India is one of the most robust in the world and the recent global meltdown has amply proved it, as we remained largely insulated from the ripples of the financial crisis,” he added.
Jadhav underlined India had been traditionally labeled as ‘reluctant liberaliser’, but now everybody was praising our handling of the crisis as we treated reform not as an event, but a process.
Elaborating further, he admitted that China had developed faster than India because it followed a centralised system of governance and there were fewer checks and balances in place.
“In our parliamentary democracy, things may move comparatively slower, but it ensures a holistic development model, which will complement us when things go out of hand such as the recent meltdown,” Jadhav said.
He, however, stressed the greater role of public private partnership (PPP) mode in all spheres of economy, including education and employment generation for inclusive growth.
]He was in town to address the Lucknow Management Association (LMA) convention 2009 on ‘Leveraging Demographic Dividend Though Quality Education – The Way Forward’.
