G20 Presidency Policy Next Highlights: India's G20 presidency has become a mass movement, says Shamika Ravi

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“The number of riots in India has been falling. Though Manipur is not an isolated issue, it is a structural issue related to aspects like land.”

“I used to think there is nothing called Western press. There is good and bad press. But now I feel it is being bankrolled. The best bet is to take support in data because it is relatively more objective.”

-- 13.5 crore people have come out of multidimensional poverty in the last five years and that is no mean feat

-- As many as 56 ministries using DBT in some form or the other

-- Globally, people expected a humanitarian crisis in India due to the pandemic, but the govt, industry, and society came together, leading to a very different outcome

-- Upward revision of India’s GDP growth is not surprising either. India has grown at 6-7 percent before as well, but we have never grown at this level in the midst of a global slowdown. Therefore, there is all the more reason for optimism.

Shamika Ravi says currently, the debate in India around data now is on sampling. The frequency of surveys for data collection has been increased. However, the quality of data is key to making policies on poverty, and jobs, among others.”

“Over the last 10 years, all surveys we have done have had a rural bias as we are benchmarking ourselves to the 2011 census.”

“India now is in the realm of precision policy making, no longer in the realm of national policy making. We currently wait for years to get certain data available. Mospi alone doesn't collect data, it is collected by ministers too. We have to make our policies more responsible to ensure better data.”

Shamika Ravi says the Centre is looking very closely at states' debt management, especially on the source of funding for freebies.

Punjab seeing deindustrialisation on policies to appease some entrenched groups is problematic, she says and adds that states going back to the old pension scheme is not feasible either because funds could move away from larger development requirements.

While Chhattisgarh and Odisha are managing administration well, trends in states like West Bengal and Punjab are troubling, she points out.

Shamika Ravi speaks on the India growth story, says: “It is only a matter of time before India realises mantra for long term growth.”

She explains, “India is more resilient to pandemic-like shocks because we have DBT and JAM architectures in place…”

However, she says though food security is the key concern, we are over it. Currently, it is only on the distribution front that we see seasonal shocks. “Distribution policy is not entirely smooth hence we need some cushioning,” Ravi says.

“This is the reason we wanted to implement farm laws that were withdrawn to help farmers get the benefit of a situation like now.”

Further, she points out that not all inflation is bad. “Certain kinds of inflation also lead to redistribution in the economy. For instance, farmers’ income is far more stable today, and there are fewer fluctuations.”

Shamika Ravi says India's G20 presidency has become a mass movement. A lot of the Global South is backing India because of our G20 priorities, she adds.

Ravi also points out that the opportunity cost for India to go green is higher vs most of the G20 participant nations and there is now acknowledgement that we cannot grow like the OECD countries grew. “We need behavioural changes to ensure quality of life including green energy, recycling because it cannot be about GDP alone.”

Shamika Ravi, Member, Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council and Secretary, Government of India speaks on India’s G20 presidency, says “India's G20 priority of women-leddevelopment has faced some constraints.”

Shamika Ravi, Member, Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council and Secretary, Government of India speaks on India’s G20 presidency.

She says: “G20 has become a people's movement for the first time. India's aim for the presidency is to represent the voice of the Global South.

The biggest concern of a platform like G20 is everyone has veto power. It is about building consensus in a fractured world.

Issues India would like to mainstream in the G20 presidency will stay for the next few years.

We finally have a new model for global development. We are talking about globalizing DBT. Welfare is now being done via direct contact between the state and the citizen. Growth is so much more than government. Aadhaar was once an initiative and has now been universalized.

Concern in G20 has been moving on the climate change issue. A lot of the issues like climate have to be treated like family and which family does not have fractures. Movement on climate change will be visible in two to three weeks in the G20 leaders’ summit.”

“DPI's design principles need to have a healthy, vibrant ecosystem connecting to it. Our research on UPI tells us that it is word of mouth that brings people to the platform.”

Commenting on UPI being a duopoly, Rai said: “The architecture is very open. There are more than 50+ apps on UPI.”

Rahul Handa, Executive Vice President - Strategic Initiatives, ONDC: “If UPI didn’t exist, we would not have had the reason to exist…. There has been a certain kind of resistance on being interoperable….”

Arvind Gupta, Founder Member, ISpirit: “ONDC is building on UPI's success.”

Pramod Varma, Former Chief Architect Aadhaar & India Stack: “DPI's thinking was not meant to solve. Aadhaar was meant to open up access, it was not meant to solve problems.”

Arvind Gupta, Founder Member, ISpirit, says: “G20 has put DPI at the centerstage of discussion globally. But we have not yet solved a few percentages of problems. India seems to be the only country championing DPI. Lots of other countries have to take it up.”

When we look at the various components of DPI, each has a very specific role. Identity combines with e-sign, andDigilocker; payments operate parallelly.