Three decades of economic reforms in India had benefited citizens unevenly, and there was a need for the “Indian model” of development to focus on creating wealth at the bottom of the pyramid, the richest Indian, Mukesh Ambani, said. The Reliance Industries (RIL) chairman exuded confidence that the country could be on a par with the US and China by 2047. 

Writing a rare column on the occasion of 30 years of economic liberalisation, the chairman of India’s largest company by market value said that bold economic reforms helped GDP of $266 billion in 1991 grow by over ten times. 

“India transformed from an economy of scarcity in 1991 into an economy of sufficiency in 2021. Now, India has to transform itself into an economy of sustainable abundance and equitable prosperity for all by 2051. In India, equity will be at the heart of our collective prosperity,” he wrote in The Times of India. 

Mr Ambani said that India in 1991 showed foresight and courage in changing both the direction and determinants of its economy. 

“The government placed the private sector also at the commanding heights of the national economy, which the public sector had occupied for the previous four decades. It ended the licence-quota raj, liberalised trade and industrial policies and freed up capital markets and the financial sector. These reforms liberated India’s entrepreneurial energy and inaugurated an era of fast-paced growth,” he wrote. 

It was unimaginable, he recalled, that people had to wait for years to get a telephone or a gas connection or that businesses had to seek government’s permission to buy a computer. 

The road ahead, Mr Ambani said, was not easy. “But let us not be deterred by unexpected and temporary problems, such as the pandemic, or distracted by unimportant issues that dissipate our energies. We have the opportunity, also a responsibility towards our children and youth, to make the next 30 years the best ever in independent India’s history.” 

To realise this, the model of self-reliant India cooperative with the rest of the world might be the answer, Mr Ambani opined.