It's so simple.

"In 2023-24, according to IMF, India's GDP is likely to grow 6.1%, the highest in the G20. In general, India's trend growth is estimated to be closer to 6% by many international organizations," wrote Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India V Anantha Nageswaran. "India's average annual growth could be between 6.5% and 7% rather than close to 6%." Nageswaran compares with 1998-2002 when there were sanctions on India due to the nuclear test, drought and 9/11 happened. That led to reforms which led to economic growth at 8-9% from 2003-2008. Structural reforms by the present government could push economic growth to "8% and beyond", if external factors turn favorable. "India's labor force participation rate for all age groups is around 41.6% (57.5% for males, 25% for females)," wrote Prof Amit Kapoor and Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister Bibek Debroy. Which means 58.4%, more than half, of our workforce are not working or even looking for work. Our working-age population is projected to grow by "roughly 9.7 million per year from 2021 to 2031 and 4.2 million annually in the 2031-2041 period". So we have to create lots of paid jobs, get more women into the workforce and increase productivity. A paper by Amit Basole of Azim Premji University says that, "Our growth elasticity of employment, a measure of how output expansion generates jobs," "is so weak that a 10% growth in gross domestic product (GDP) is associated with only a 1% rise in employment." Mint. "Numerous studies have shown that India's productivity problem is reflected by substantial disparity across India's firms," wrote Ram Shivakumar. Using revenue per employee (RPE) as a metric for measuring labor productivity he found that RPE has been falling for firms in all classes, as per size, and across wholesale, manufacturing, construction and retail. The Print. "The degree of informality in the employment structure in the Indian economy continues to be a key impediment to ensuring inclusive and sustainable growth." The Quint. "Among the five South Asian countries, the informalisation of labor is disappointingly the highest in India and Nepal (90.7%). Bangladesh (48.9%), Sri Lanka (60.6%) and Pakistan (77.6%) doing much better on this front." "India's statistics ministry generates only one high-frequency gauge of economic activity," wrote Pramit Bhattacharya, and that is the Index of Industrial Production (IIP). However, in a research note, Credit Suisse analysts "show that the IIP has consistently understated growth in industrial output over the past decade". Because, "India also needs a reliable gauge of services activity, given that the services sector accounts for more than half of India's economic output." "We should not have to rely on a small-scale survey (PMI) to gauge the level of services activity in a large and diverse economy as ours." If this or that happened, India could become the richest country in the world. If we grew feathers we could fly. We could also fall like Icarus.