Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman emphasises the importance of state empowerment, funding, and capacity-building to achieve India’s vision of Viksit Bharat by 2047, highlighting the need to include underdeveloped regions and modernise the socioeconomic fabric.
Nirmala Sitharaman has used a lecture in New Delhi to argue that India’s next phase of growth will depend not just on the central government but on the states, saying they must be properly empowered, funded and equipped to build capacity if the country’s ambitions are to be realised. Speaking at the CD Deshmukh Memorial Lecture at the National Council of Applied Economic Research, she said underdeveloped regions must be brought into the mainstream rather than allowing growth to remain concentrated in only a few parts of the country.
The finance minister set out a broad definition of Viksit Bharat, linking it to zero poverty, universal quality education, broad access to healthcare, skilled work, the full economic participation of women and technological leadership. She said 2047, the centenary of independence, should be treated less as a distant target than as an immediate national horizon, with much of the groundwork needing to be settled in the coming years.
Sitharaman also cast India’s development story as one of recovery as much as progress. Citing historical estimates, she said the subcontinent accounted for roughly one-third of global GDP at the start of the Common Era and argued that poverty was not India’s natural condition but the result of centuries of invasion and colonial rule, compounded by the early decades after independence. She added that the country must seek prosperity without becoming consumerist, and global success without losing its civilisational character.
Her remarks come at a time when outside analysis continues to highlight the gap between India’s scale and its share of world output. A Federal Reserve note published in April said India represents about 3% of global GDP despite its enormous population, compared with China’s 17%, while also noting New Delhi’s ambition to reach high-income status by 2047. That broader economic context lends added weight to Sitharaman’s argument that education, public health and state-level capacity will be central to the country’s long-term trajectory.
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