KV Kamath: Economy growing at 11%

BANGALORE: The Indian economy is growing faster than the officially quoted 8%-8.5% GDP growth rate, said KV Kamath, the newly appointed chairman of Infosys Technologies.

At a meet-the-press event here on Saturday, Kamath said India is actually growing at 11%-12%. Kamath said the economic data used to compute growth rates are not accurate. "As long as we don't have the right statistics, there is a question over the growth rate," he said.

There are several uncounted and unaccounted figures which could easily add another 3-4 percentage points to India's GDP, he said. India, he said, is thus growing at the double-digit rates we have become used to seeing in China in recent years and Japan in the 1980s. As for India's per capita income, Kamath said India stands where China was 10 years ago, and in the next 10 years, it will stand at where China's per capita income stands today. Kamath said for this growth to be truly transformational and benefit a larger proportion of the masses, India has to put more emphasis on certain areas.

The manufacturing sector must further expand as it has the capacity to generate large-scale employment. Infrastructure bottlenecks must be addressed as they hinder development.

Also, consumer demand must be kept robust to drive the economy. He said technology too could help in greater percolation of benefits to the poor. The use of the unique identification platform for cash-transfer schemes using Aadhaar-linked bank accounts would prevent leakages in subsidy programmes like LPG and kerosene. On the high interest rate environment, Kamath said the most affected would be retail customers who take home loans, auto loans, etc. Businesses can tide over these times with internal accruals, he said.