Viksit Bharat: Beyond economics

India has set itself an extraordinary national aspiration: Viksit Bharat by 2047. The economic ambition is increasingly well articulated. Recent NITI Aayog documents envisage an economy of roughly $30 trillion and per capita income of more than $18,000 by 2047. Importantly, NITI’s vision also extends beyond economics: it speaks of inclusive growth, improved living standards, sustainability, education, skills, innovation and a high-opportunity, high-capability society.

These are important and necessary goals. Economic prosperity creates the resources required for infrastructure, education, healthcare, social security, innovation and opportunity. But there remains an important question. What, precisely and measurably, should qualify India as ‘developed’ in 2047?

There is no universally accepted global threshold that automatically transforms a country into a developed nation. Even the World Bank’s classification of a ‘high-income economy’ – currently, based on GNI per capita above $14,375 – is an income classification, not a certification that a society is developed.

India, therefore, has an opportunity to go further: to develop a clear, measurable and nationally accepted framework that defines not merely the economic scale of Viksit Bharat but the quality of the society we aspire to create. Without such a broader framework, there is a risk that Viksit Bharat becomes understood primarily through its economic targets. The numbers are powerful and necessary – but they describe the scale of an economy more readily than the quality of a society.

Prosperity does not automatically mean happier. It does not automatically mean better. Unless Viksit Bharat is explicitly and measurably linked to the quality of life of the ordinary Indians – the water they drink, the air they breathe, the food they consume, the safety they experience and the justice they can access – the economic definition will remain necessary but incomplete.

Development is ultimately about quality: Once development is viewed through the lens of quality rather than size, the discussion changes. We must ask about the quality of our education and healthcare; the safety of our food and medicines; the air we breathe and water we drink; our infrastructure and public services; and the safety citizens experience in everyday life. We must examine the quality of our laws but equally their implementation and the speed and effectiveness with which justice is delivered.

We must consider the quality and integrity of our institutions, the quality of the products and services we produce, the health of our natural environment and even the quality of our interpersonal relationships – our civic behaviour, social harmony, empathy and trust. And ultimately, we must ask about the quality of our character.

The true measure of a developed nation cannot merely be the size of its economy. It must also be the quality it demonstrates – in its institutions, environment, products, public life, relationships and people.

Twenty-five years of growth – an honest audit: India’s economic progress over the past quarter-century has been remarkable. The question is not whether progress has occurred – it unquestionably has because, over the past 25 years, India’s nominal per-capita income has increased more than five-fold. But when we ask a more useful question: ‘has improvement in the quality of our physical, institutional and social environment kept pace with our economic progress,’ the answer is mixed.

There have been major gains in infrastructure, connectivity, access to services, digital inclusion and several health and development indicators. But progress across quality-of-life dimensions has been uneven and in several important areas the distance still to travel is substantial.

Consider ‘air’: India’s average PM2.5 concentration in 2025 stood at 48.9 mg per cu m, according to IQAir’s 2025 World Air Quality Report – nearly 10 times the WHO’s recommended annual guideline of ‘five’. Air quality is, therefore, not merely an environmental statistic. It directly influences the health and quality of everyday life of millions of Indians.

Consider ‘water and sewage’: When we look at depleted water levels across India, the results are alarming. Re: water pollution, Central Pollution Control Board data estimate urban sewage generation at about 61,754 million litres per day, against treatment capacity of only about 22,963 million litres per day – a gap of nearly 39 billion litres every day.

Our rivers inevitably bear part of that burden. CPCB continues to identify polluted river stretches requiring restoration across the country. For a developed India, therefore, the measure cannot simply be how much water infrastructure we construct. It must ultimately be: is clean water actually reaching people and is polluted water being treated before it returns to nature?

Consider ‘soil’: The Economic Survey itself describes declining organic carbon and deficiencies of macro- and micronutrients in many Indian soils as a significant challenge to agricultural sustainability. Soil quality rarely enters popular discussions about development, yet the health of our soil ultimately influences the quality of our food, water, rural livelihoods and long-term food security.

Consider ‘food & medicine’: The appropriate development question is not simply how much food we produce or how large our pharmaceutical industry becomes. It is whether citizens can have reasonable confidence that what they eat and the medicines they consume are safe, authentic and compliant with quality standards.

Here, too, measurement needs to distinguish between incidence and detection carefully: more testing can uncover more violations without necessarily proving that adulteration itself has increased. But that distinction does not weaken the larger proposition. A developed society should aspire to make food and medicine safety a dependable expectation, not an uncertainty citizens must individually manage.

Consider our ‘green spaces & natural environment’: India’s official State of Forest Report records changes in forest and tree cover and, encouragingly, shows a modest overall increase nationally. But aggregate numbers do not tell the entire ecological story. The quality and location of green cover matter as much as the total.

In India’s six major megacities, the Forest Survey of India reports forest cover equivalent to only about 10.3 per cent of their combined geographical area. As our cities expand, accessible urban green space should increasingly be viewed not as a luxury but as part of the infrastructure of a healthy life.

Consider ‘women’s and children’s safety’: Official data recorded 448,211 crimes against women in 2023. Such statistics require careful interpretation: registered crime is not identical to underlying incidence, and changes in reporting can affect trends. But the central development question remains unavoidable. Can a society truly call itself developed, if a substantial proportion of its citizens do not feel secure in their homes, streets, workplaces or public spaces?

Safety should, therefore, be measured not merely through crime statistics but eventually through citizen experience and perception as well.

Consider ‘justice’: India’s National Judicial Data Grid currently shows more than 50 million cases pending in district and subordinate courts, in addition to more than six million cases in High Courts. Pendency alone does not capture the complexity of India’s judicial system, but time to justice surely belongs in any serious definition of development. A developed society should not measure merely whether citizens have access to courts. It should also ask how long an ordinary citizen must wait for resolution.

And finally, consider ‘institutional integrity’: India scored 39 out of 100 and ranked 91st among 182 countries in Transparency International’s 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index. The index measures perceptions of public-sector corruption and should not be treated as a comprehensive measure of corruption across society. Nevertheless, it remains an important international benchmark.

If we are willing to compare ourselves with developed nations on GDP, infrastructure, technology and innovation, we should be equally willing to benchmark ourselves on integrity, institutional trust, rule of law and quality of governance. The conclusion from this audit should not be that India’s development story has failed. Far from it. It should be that economic progress and quality-of-life progress do not automatically move at the same speed. And that is precisely why both need to be measured.

The problem with averages: Per capita income is an important measure of prosperity and raising it to developed-country levels should remain a national objective. But an average is, after all, an average. A country can have an impressive average income, while millions of citizens remain unable to access the basic necessities of a dignified life.

The objective need not, and should not, be identical income for everyone. But surely a developed India must ensure that the last person in the queue has the resources and opportunities required to live with dignity.

That raises a question which itself deserves a measurable national answer: what constitutes a dignified life in Viksit Bharat? Nutritious food. A decent home. Clean drinking water. Sanitation. Quality healthcare. Meaningful education. Personal safety. Digital connectivity. A clean environment. Access to opportunity. And the possibility of improving one’s circumstances through one’s own effort and merit.

If Viksit Bharat could establish measurable minimum standards across these dimensions, development would cease to be merely an average national statistic. It would become a lived experience.

The economics of trust: Successful developed societies differ enormously, but two characteristics appear repeatedly. The first is a relatively effective system of ‘rule of law and justice delivery’. Justice must not merely exist; it must be delivered within a reasonable period. When consequences are reasonably swift and certain, wrongdoing becomes more expensive and honesty becomes easier.

The second is less tangible ‘trust’. Consider how much mental energy we sometimes spend evaluating a simple commitment. Does this person really mean what he/she is saying? Will the commitment actually be honoured? What discount should I apply to this promise?

That last question may sound almost humorous, but its economic consequences are serious. When commitments cannot be trusted, we add verification. When compliance cannot be assumed, we add supervision. When contracts are routinely questioned, we add documentation, lawyers and enforcement. When systems cannot be relied upon, we create additional controls and procedures. And every additional layer consumes time, money and human energy.

A low-trust society, therefore, carries an enormous, largely invisible economic cost. The reverse is equally true. When people keep their word, transactions become simpler. When organisations act with integrity, compliance costs decline. When contracts are respected, business becomes easier. When institutions are trustworthy, citizens and investors act with greater confidence.

Character, therefore, has economic value. I have described this elsewhere as the ‘character dividend’: trust translating into lower transaction costs, stronger institutions, better quality and higher productivity. Character is not merely a moral virtue. It is also an economic asset.

India has invested enormously in physical infrastructure. It has created remarkable digital infrastructure and is rapidly developing technological and artificial-intelligence capabilities.

Perhaps Viksit Bharat must simultaneously invest in another form of infrastructure: ‘character infrastructure’. Infrastructure determines what a nation can do. Character influences what it chooses to do with that capability.

For business, this is not an abstract moral proposition. Trust has a balance-sheet consequence. A high-integrity business environment reduces the cost of verification, supervision, contracting and dispute resolution. It strengthens consumer confidence, improves the reliability of supply chains and makes long-term capital more comfortable. For global investors evaluating India, the quality of governance, predictability of contracts and institutional trust matter alongside market size and growth.

Character infrastructure, therefore, is also ‘competitiveness infrastructure’. Knowledge must be complemented by character.

India’s education system has expanded knowledge, capability and employability on an extraordinary scale. But formal education has traditionally devoted far less systematic attention to integrity, responsibility, compassion, civic consciousness and our obligations towards others.

As India prepares the generation that will build and lead Viksit Bharat, perhaps education must increasingly develop not only what a person knows and can do but also who that person becomes and how that capability is used.

This does not mean replacing knowledge with values. It means recognising that the two complement each other. An engineer needs technical competence – but society also depends upon the integrity with which that competence is exercised. A doctor needs medical knowledge – but also responsibility and compassion. A business leader needs the ability to create wealth – but also fairness, trustworthiness and stewardship. A public servant needs administrative capability – but also a commitment to public purpose.

One effort in this direction is the work of the Institute of Goodness on a Goodness Index and on Personal Social Responsibility – exploring whether character, responsibility and civic values can be measured, recognised and strengthened systematically through education. It is one approach among many that will be required if human development is to receive the same institutional attention that we give economic development.

Five dimensions of Viksit Bharat: This leads to a larger proposition. Alongside the economic ambition of Viksit Bharat, India could develop an equally clear and measurable framework defining what a developed India should mean across five dimensions.

• Economic prosperity & opportunity: income, productivity, employment, entrepreneurship, innovation, competitiveness and economic resilience.

• Human development & quality of life: education, healthcare, nutrition, skills, longevity, well-being and the ability of individuals to flourish.

• Institutions, governance & rule of law: justice, accountability, transparency, institutional integrity and effective public-service delivery.

• Social & environmental quality: clean air and water, sustainability, personal safety, inclusion, social harmony, civic responsibility and trust; and finally,

• Character, values & goodness: integrity, honesty, compassion, responsibility, fairness, respect, trustworthiness, stewardship and moral courage.

The fifth dimension may appear more difficult to measure than income, air quality or life expectancy. But difficult does not mean immeasurable. Character at a societal level need not be assessed by making moral judgements about individuals. It can be reflected through observable indicators – levels of interpersonal and institutional trust, civic participation and volunteerism, adherence to rules even when enforcement is weak, corporate and professional integrity, responsible treatment of shared public spaces and citizen perceptions of fairness and honesty.

The purpose is not to reduce goodness to a number but to make visible what conventional measures of development often leave invisible. The fifth dimension is not an ornamental addition to the other four. In many ways, it supports them: Can institutions have integrity without people of integrity? Can cities remain clean without responsible citizens? Can societies maintain harmony without respect and compassion? Can businesses remain trustworthy without trustworthy people? Development ultimately involves both systems and behaviour.

A richer India – and a better India: Viksit Bharat should therefore not merely mean a richer India. It should mean a better, healthier, safer, trustworthy and a happier India. A richer India – but also one with cleaner air, soil and water and safe food and medicines. A technologically advanced India – but also one that is environmentally conscious and sustainable. A powerful India – but also a safe, caring and compassionate India that leaves no one behind. A highly educated India – but also a healthy India with robust and accessible healthcare. A prosperous India – but also an honest India, characterised by integrity, trust, responsibility and social harmony. And, most importantly, an India in which the last person in the queue can live with dignity, opportunity and hope.

Perhaps one of the important tasks on the road to 2047, therefore, is to define Viksit Bharat itself – clearly, measurably and transparently – across its economic, human, institutional, social, environmental and character dimensions. Because once we define where we want to reach, we can measure where we stand. Once we know where we stand, we can identify where we fall short. And once we know the gaps, we can systematically work to close them.

When India reaches 2047, the question should not only be: have we become one of the world’s largest and most prosperous economies? We should be able to ask another question with equal seriousness: have we created one of the world’s finest, trustworthy and happiest societies?

When we can answer yes to both, then, in the truest sense, we would have built a Viksit Bharat.