Topmost policy think-tank of the country SKOCH Group In association with RIS (Research and Information System for Developing Countries), ICRIER and IDF today organized World’s first Public Policy Literature Fest (at 63rd SKOCH Summit). This is one of the largest gathering and meet of public policy authors, startup ecosystem, economists, think tanks, civil servants and experts on water issues, foreign trade, telecom, MSMEs, defence, digital and other sectors. SKOCH Public Policy LITFest is an endeavour to bring public policy literature to the forefront of public discourse and decision making.

Scheduled just ahead of the union budget the sessions were insightful of the roadmap of the Indian economy with engaging discussions among country’s renowned economists, think tanks and policy makers witnessed by an audience comprising of civil servants and aspirants. 

Speaking on the massive startup innovations happening in the country, Mr. Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog and Author of ‘Incredible India 2.0’ said, “India is seeing a tremendous startup movement. We have close to 35,000 young startups, almost 10,000 tech startups and they are doing some unique work. Startups such as Hello English, Embibe, Tricog etc. are some great innovation stories. Indian startups such as Biju, Oyo, Ola are now penetrating global markets. This has demonstrated that you create the right ecosystem and Indian startups will actually penetrate the world. This has happened because we in India have been able to build a unique system. We are the only country in the world with 1200 million biometric, 1200 million mobiles and 1200 million bank accounts. And this what we call the JAM trinity will enable a lot of unique transition to advanced economy in due course.” 

“India's data consumption today is more than the data consumption of US and China combined. We will provide size and scale of the data that the world has never seen before. This size and scale will enable us to use a lot of machine learning, AI to provide solutions to health and education which has never done before. In the next 15 years AI will contribute about 15.7 trillion $ to the global economy which is more than the output of USA and China put together. The world is innovating from Indian and India is innovating for the world. We have eased the patent to drive a massive amount of innovation. Today you can get a patent in the country just in 18 months, the way you get in the USA.”

The highest honour of SKOCH Awards – SKOCH Challenger Award was conferred to Dr. N C Saxena, Mentor to a generation of accomplished IAS Officers in the country, Author of ‘What Ails the IAS and Why It Fails to Deliver? for his valuable contribution towards the betterment of the country. 

Speaking on the challenges and steps required to achieve the 5 trillion $ economy goal, Mr. Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog and Author of ‘Incredible India 2.0’ said, “It’s not possible for India to grow without a massive focus on learning and health outcomes. While we have been able to provide access of education to all, our learning outcome still remain extremely poor. Grade competence is very important for country’s future growth and therefore learning outcomes must improve. Our nutrition policy and health outcome has to play a critical role in near future. Our recent studies shows that the country need to lay a massive emphasis on health outcomes at grass root levels particularly at the state level. 

“If you look at the map of India you will see 115 districts of India keeping it backwards. Unless these districts are not radically transformed it will be very difficult for India to be transformed. We don’t call them the backwards districts as they are aspirational districts for us. We are governing them on real time data basis. Third party data coming from various sources on 49 indicators and we are putting them on delta performance, not historic performance. We are naming, shaming and rewarding on a day to day and month on month basis and putting them on public domain. Over a period of time we have to necessarily transform these 115 districts for India to be able to grow. We cannot just grow on the back of service sector and hence need to take exports and manufacturing to newer heights.”, he further added.

Eminent personalities such as, Dr. Rakesh Kumar, Chief Advisor, UNDP India; Mr. Alok Kumar, Adviser Health & Nutrition, NITI Aayog; Dr. Nagesh Kumar, Author, Director and Head of the South and South-West Asia (SSWA) Office of the United Nations; Mr. Shyamal Ghosh, Chairman, Telecom Export Promotion Council (TEPC); Dr. N C Saxena, Author of ‘What Ails the IAS and Why It Fails to Deliver?’; Mr. R Chandrashekhar, Author and Former Secretary, Government of India; Mr. Shyamal Ghosh, Chairman, Telecom Export Promotion Council (TEPC); Mr. Abhijit Das, Author, Head & Professor, Centre For WTO Studies among others participated and shared their insights at the summit.