Government’s premier think-tank NITI Aayog has proposed to rearrange contents of the India-China Strategic Economic Dialogue, first started by UPA-II government in 2010, to reflect the priorities of BJP-led NDA government.
The idea is to showcase India as an investment destination to lure multinational companies in China to migrate to India to help create more employment in the country.
NITI Aayog vice chairman Arvind Panagariya is of the opinion that while the originally set up five working groups could be renamed later, the focus of discussion will now be on railways and roads, solar energy and coal gasification, urbanization, domestic electronic manufacturing and new policy initiatives like coastal employment zones.
The five working groups engaged so far were on energy, infrastructure, resource conservation and environment protection, high-tech and on policy coordination.
NITI Aayog is hosting over 220 Chinese delegates as part of the India China Strategic Economic Dialogue on October 6-7, after more than two years of the last dialogue held in March 2014.
Xu Shaoshi, chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission would lead the delegation while Panagariya would represent the Indian side.
According to Panagariya, India would like to take advantage of China’s expertise on redevelopment of railway stations in India, development of coastal economic zones, smart cities and waste management. Hence, the tweaking of the agenda to give a big push to some of the top initiatives of the government.
As part of the dialogue, India for the first time also plans to bring on board states which have received considerable amount of foreign direct investments from China and are also coastal areas where potential coastal employment zones can come up. These include Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Chattisgarh.
Besides, NITaI Aayog has proposed site visits of top delegates to a Maruti Suzuki plant in Gurgaon, IT industry hub either in Bangalore or Mumbai, to railway stations, solar and wind power plants near Delhi and waste water treatment plants in Delhi.
By Baishakhi Dutta
