India in the last few quarters has been identified as the fastest growing economy of the world. While this growing tag surely does look good, it also provides us with a functional use. As a developing country, the growth tag signals the ability to attract business, to provide jobs to it's youth and the necessary push to innovate. Greenfield projects have been seen as a symbol of new prosperity, especially in a democracy where projects are also used as political leverage.
While investment in new projects is always a good idea, what is an even better idea for a country like india, especially at the helm of an economic slowdown is the upgradation of it's existing infrastructure. It would tackle the challenge of socio economic transformation in the following ways-
1. Green field projects especially in terms of infrastructure have a very heavy cost attached to them and have additional costs of marketing, presenting etc. All this has the potential to raise the government expenditure greatly.
2. Making rational and better use of already available facilities- It has often been seen in india that before we can start to use the newly constructed project usefully, a new things comes up in the market by which we often get swayed and our attention diverted
3. There is a serious NPA crisis which is dogging our banks and financial system which also needs to be tackled before we can actually start to put greater pressure on the banks especially from the side of the banks which would lead to a crowding out effect.
4. Finally, socio economic transformation doesn't rest on h=who has the shiniest and newest buildings and projects rather on how the common masses are amble to make use of those projects. Long term planning on how we handle our money is essential to avoiding situations in the past such as 91'.
CONCLUSION:What the above means however is not to not engage in new projects at all, rather invest wisely in the kind of projects and how they serve in the time of slowdown. The public good needs to be analysed to achieve india's goal of socio economic transformation.
