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Booming India deters future immigrants
Every time I go to India, I come back impressed at the developments taking place in the world’s largest democracy. Economists predict that India will overtake Britain and have the world’s fifth largest economy within a decade. If the trend continues, India’s economy is set up to surpass the US and be second only to China’s by mid-century, a report by investment bank Goldman Sachs says. The report also talks about how India’s programme of reforms has brought increased competition and efficiency. While we may just sit on our couches and read away reports emanating from India and other places about the developments in the country, once there, one can see and feel India’s new found energy among India’s population, especially its youth once there. Everywhere you turn in India's cities is signs of economic boom. The implications of projections are that India will overtake the G6 economies faster than envisaged.
Gone is the time when the only cars running in the capital’s roads vying for space among two wheelers and bicycles were the little Maruti. New cars, whether from Japan, America or South Korea are now choking the streets of the capital. Finding parking space for the sudden onslaught of four wheelers, however, still remains an unsolved puzzle. With the coming up of at least 60 flyovers in New Delhi, cruising the streets of the vibrant city is not an abominable task any more. Pollsters predict within 15 years Indians should, on average, be four times richer than today, buying five times as many cars, and the country will burn three times as much crude oil to power its growth. Today’s Indian youth is much more vibrant, a risk taker, better informed, better educated and ready to spend money on luxurious lifestyle than the parsimonious lifestyle of their parents. Today’s youth dreams of owning a house as soon as he gets a job, by taking long term loans from banks instead of saving up as their parents used to. A recent survey found that whether in cities, towns or rural areas, over half of all middle class respondents vouched for a good lifestyle. The two areas where they are ready to spend money are travel and eating out. Among the higher middle class, 63 per cent had gone on a vacation at least once in the past two years; 14 per cent said they ate out at least once a week. The bug seems to have caught the fancy of even the lower middle class: 51 per cent had taken a holiday in the last two years and 8 per cent said they ate out at least once a week. Domestic tourism rose by 30% last year and The National Council for Applied Economic Research estimated that there 56 million people in households earning between USD $4,400 to $ 21,800 annually which defines today’s ‘middle class’. No wonder, not many in India are today interested in leaving the country for America or Canada. During my short stay in New Delhi, I came across families who had got their Canadian Permanent Resident Visa, but not yet decided to take the plunge. Most had heard of the horror stories of the status of immigrants and the work the doctors and engineers are doing in Canada. They had done their homework well and were aware that doctors could only drive cabs or trucks in Canada and not practice medicine. A bank manager wanted me to tell him the fact about the kind of opportunities he would have if he decided to move to Canada, since he has been sitting on the visa for the last over a year. All I could manage to tell him was “My hairdresser in Vancouver was a manager of a bank in Mumbai”. He wasn’t shocked. Just said “I can take the hint”. |
