News: 'India can’t build a Pudong overnight like China'

(BL 11/09/2006) Beijing - India cannot build infrastructure and generate economic growth at the pace of state-led China as it has a different model of growth where the emphasis is on people-oriented policies, the Minister for Science and Technology, Kapil Sibal, said here today.

"There is a different model of growth in our country. In a society which is somewhat different, you can get a lot of people to move out without access to courts of law, without stay orders from courts, get the system going," he said at a meeting organised by the World Economic Forum on the sidelines of the 'China Business Summit 2006'.

Referring to the gleaming financial hub of Pudong, he said, "We can't, for example, build a Pudong overnight. Our democracy tells us, our rural areas tell us, the electoral verdict will tell us that if you don't have growth with equity, we will throw you out of power," he told global business leaders at an interactive breakfast session on 'India: Opportunities and Challenges' organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here.

China, where the land belongs to the state, has built world-class infrastructure and top-class buildings, often uprooting and relocating millions of peoples from their homes. Pudong, the gleaming financial hub in the eastern metropolis, Shanghai was buil t in a short time, pouring billions of dollars.

"You can build infrastructure and generate economic growth. I think in India, it is not going to happen. Economic growth and infrastructure will go hand in hand with opportunities and growth. It is not to come before growth because it is not an export-led economy. India is a home-based consumption economy," Sibal emphasised.