Raghuram Rajan: 'People living in Gurgaon and Noida operating in first-world economy'

Raghuram Rajan also praised the impact of Unified Payments Interface and called its implementation in transactions "a great success". (File pic).

Former Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan has said that the population residing in northern Indian cities such as Gurgaon and Noida were operating like one would in a first-world economy.

"Parts of the Indian economy are first world. People in Noida or Gurgaon are essentially operating in a first-world economy," Rajan said in YouTuber Akash Banerjee's "The Deshbhakt" channel podcast.

The 60-year-old, who was also the government's Chief Economic Advisor between 2012 and 2013, praised the impact of Unified Payments Interface (UPI), whose first steps were taken when he was at the RBI, and called its implementation in transactions "a great success".

"Let's start with UPI. Great success. Success has many fathers. I want to claim little bit of parenthood. It started at my time at the RBI, now we are at 10 billion transactions a month," Rajan said.

Rajan further said that India would find it difficult to become a developed economy by 2047 at the existing growth rate of the country.

"Our current per capita is around USD 2,500. India cannot become a developed country by 2047 at the current growth rate. We can, at best. reach lower middle income to moderate middle income," he said.

When asked as to who gave the idea of demonetisation in 2016, Rajan said that he was asked by the Prime Minister's office to examine whether going ahead with demonetisation would work or not and in response, he and his team sent a note which gave the good and the bad of the decision, but indicated to government officials to not go ahead with the decision.