Equirus Securities outlines a 20-point reform agenda and envisages India’s economy expanding to $20 trillion by 2036 through sustained growth and strategic asset monetisation, focusing on services, capital markets, and governance reforms.
Equirus Securities has sketched an ambitious path for India to become a $20 trillion economy by 2036, arguing that the country would need to grow about 5.5 times from a base near $3.7 trillion. In its report, “India’s Road to a $20 Trillion Economy”, the brokerage said that would require sustained nominal growth of roughly 18 per cent in dollar terms, well above India’s long-term trend of 10-11 per cent.
The firm’s 20-point reform agenda spans five broad themes: the real economy, capital markets, human capital, services, and liveability and governance. Among the measures it wants to see are bringing fuel into the GST system, setting mandatory state capital spending floors, reviving private research and development, creating a national policy for global capability centres, and aligning bond and equity tax treatment to deepen markets. Equirus also wants a flat 5 per cent TDS rate, the abolition of advance tax, an end to what it calls the double transaction tax on cash equity trades, and a tapering of small-savings schemes.
Services, the report argues, will have to carry much of the load. Agriculture, now about 17 per cent of GDP, is expected to keep shrinking as India urbanises, while manufacturing, at roughly 17-20 per cent of GDP, faces limits in a more protectionist global environment. That leaves services, already about 54 per cent of GDP, as the sector that would need to rise above 65 per cent and expand from about $2 trillion to more than $11 trillion.
Equirus is especially forceful on asset monetisation and capital-market reforms. It said public listing of Indian Railways could be worth about $500 billion and lift India’s market capitalisation towards $5.5 trillion. The report also points to the government’s estimated $249 billion equity stake across public-sector firms, suggesting a pooled holding company structure that could be listed while preserving state control over individual businesses. Separately, the brokerage says India’s corporate bond market remains shallow at about 18 per cent of GDP, compared with equity at 130 per cent, and argues that lighter transaction taxes and broader reforms could lower borrowing costs across the economy.
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