News18's Rising India Summit: Service sector driving India's GDP; structural issues affecting farming, says Suresh Prabhu

Participating in the News18 Rising India Summit, Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu said on Friday that the service sector has largely been the driving force of India’s GDP. “India’s GDP has been growing largely due to the service sector. Agriculture sector GDP is not growing due to structural issues. India has to focus mainly on manufacturing. That will foster agriculture as well,” Prabhu said while giving his views in the session on the making of a new world power. [caption id=“attachment_4393535” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu particpating at the News18 Rising India Summit in New Delhi on Friday. Image courtesy News18[/caption] In the course of the discussion, the minister admitted that giving a fillip to manufacturing through a better industrial policy is critical to boosting the GDP. “The industrial policy draft is ready and we are getting the views of experts and policy watchers. The idea behind new industrial policy is to increase the proportion of manufacturing in GDP,” the commerce minister said. NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant pointed out the need for expediting the growth rate of the country from the current level. “We are growing at about 7.3 percent. We need to extend that further. We are still producing too small and our export is not penetrating. In the next two years, we need to be in the top 50 in the ease of doing business rankings.” Kant said. At a time when the Punjab National Bank scam rattled people’s faith in these banks, SBI chairman Rajnish Kumar said that ethics is something that should never be compromised. “Ownership should not matter, whether it is private or public sector companies. Whether it is private or public, it is all about ethics,” Kumar said. He also sought to restore public faith in the government-run banks while adding that NPAs exists as a global problem in banks. “Firstly, when you drive on a highway, enter an airport or feel good about the power situation, do not forget the bank. Let us understand the importance of public sector banks. When I look back, the due diligence was lacking. There is no global power that did not have the problem of NPAs,” Kumar said. Taking part in the News18 Rising India Summit, Vedanta chief Anil Agarwal was of the opinion that stricter environmental norms are not conducive to good business. “We have to set environmental goals for ourselves. But something that has not been broken, why fix it?” Agarwal asked expressing disappointment on the Supreme Court’s mining ban in Goa. MakeMyTrip, founder CEO, Deep Kalra observed that it’s the Indian firms that were finding it tough to do business in the country compared to those investing from abroad. “We are no longer different from Silicon Valley, US or China. We’ve taken ‘Atithi Devo Bhava’ too literally because it is easier to do business in India being a foreign player. Indian companies don’t get an equal playing field. We have a unique opportunity today with Digital India. There is no dearth of brain power and that’s all that we need to win this game. Indians are among the smartest people in the world. However, we’ve rarely come up with products that can take on the world. We’ve done very well on the services front,” Kalra said.