‘To become developed country, need to address issues like malnutrition’

HYDERABAD: Former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan said that in order for India to become a developed country, it must address issues like malnutrition and focus on its greatest asset, human capital.

Speaking at an interactive session on a book co-authored by him at the Indian School of Business (ISB) on Sunday, he asked how the country can become a developed one when malnutrition is prevalent.

“We are fixated with becoming a developed, rich country by 2047. I use this as an example to say, you must be joking about becoming a developed rich country by 2047 with 35 per cent malnutrition today,” he said.

The children who are suffering from malnutrition now would join the labour force 10 years from now, he said.

He also stressed on nurturing the human capital in the country by offering appropriate training on a large scale.

“In order to get the medium term right, we

have to focus on India’s

most important asset, its human capital. We have 1.4 billion people more than any other country in the world,” he said.

“If we can train a large number of those people well, we have access to so much in terms of value creation. I would say let’s start with that. Figure out what’s going wrong there and fix it,” Rajan said.