While I don't actually know what NaMo is thinking, given his actions to date I think his plan for the economy is on the following lines:
- Market India as an investor friendly country to get in FDI
- Promote "Digital India" to encourage a part of economy that does not need big infrastructure spend, and use it to promote e-governance
- Get manufacturing in India at least for domestic consumption (including defence) to create jobs and positive buzz. Defence export are less likely to be sensitive to transport costs (the penalty of poor infrastructure) and can boost Digital India
- Start building the infrastructure required to ultimately enable India to export manufactured goods
For the first three to be sustainable, reining in bureaucracy to be more business friendly and judicial reforms to reduce end-to-end judgement times would be needed. We are already seeing steps to make the bureaucracy toe the line. Whether it will work or not is to be seen.
There is no concrete step on judicial reforms, which is a concern. However, as long as NaMo is in power, a compliant bureaucracy in itself will make a world of difference. If Modi goes out of power, most of the gains are likely to be lost without judicial reforms.
These changes are hard, but step 4 will be the hardest. Indian export in manufacturing at global scale is simply not possible without a highly developed infrastructure, including state of the art container ports, express ways for large container trucks, and a functioning fast freight container rail routes. Privatisation of freight rail, strategic layout of roads, and integrated deep water ports are needed to match the logistics advantage for manufacturing in China. To give you a perspective, right now 7 of the world's busiest container ports are in China, who has strategically invested in its infrastructure to brilliantly support exports. Without doing the same Make in India (for export and not just internal consumption) will never be viable, and digital India+defence exports can take you only so far.
Even if Modi delivers factually, he needs to up his game regarding communication and rein in a lying, agenda based main stream media. It is time that media houses were held accountable for what they publish as factual news. You can't run a lie to tarnish somebody's reputation as main news for 20 hours and then publish the apology as side news for 2 minutes.
Overall, these steps, if executed reasonably, can provide India a significant boost and actually turn it into a world power. However, it is a difficult battle against entrenched socialist practices/culture of non-performance, corruption, and protectionism. Add in a biased, lying, agenda based main stream media and desperate fight for survival by the existing corrupt order, and this gets even more interesting. Of course some of out neighbours would like to see us derail as well. NaMo alone can do only so much. I just hope it is enough...
