Sustainable Development in India-Issues and Challenges

Despite achieving remarkable progress on growth fronts, India could not do much to improve the quality of life of its people. The recent step undertaken by NDA to accelerate growth process through ‘Make in India’ is promoted as an effort to achieve a balanced, sustainable and all inclusive development. This paper aims to highlight the key issues and challenges for achieving sustainable development in India through ‘Make in India initiative’ keeping in mind the performance of Indian economy on growth and development fronts. With this purpose, an attempt is made to assess India's performance in the first section of the paper. The compound growth rates of GDP are calculated based on official data available. India's performance on development fronts is evaluated through various studies and reports available. Second section of the paper critically examines the newly launched scheme and highlights the key issues and challenges. It is found that while economic growth can be realized following this route, sustainable development is difficult to achieve this way. The success of this program will largely depend upon the government policies to resolve these issues. However, few initiatives like generation of renewable energy, green technology and skill India are steps towards better environment for development and inclusiveness.