Indian Public Policy Review

The Fine Print on AI: Debunking AI Myths

Adya Madhavan — 2025-01-26

AI has gone from a distant possibility in the realm of science fiction to a promising new technology in a short span of time. This has left much room for confusion about its capabilities, and there are many misconceptions and fears that are perpetuated today. Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor’s book ‘AI Snake Oil’ provides a comprehensive and easy to understand reality check, and the authors’ future-looking perspective makes it easy to understand the potential the technology could bring. Arguably, it is one of the best books on AI thus far-- bringing knowledge that is traditionally complex to those without a background in computer science in a straightforward manner, it sets itself apart from other books on the subject.

Quantitative Dimensions of Viksit Bharat

C Rangarajan — 2025-01-26

As India aims to become a developed nation by 2047, there is a significant lack of clarity/consensus regarding the definition of a developed country, specific targets to be reached, and projections related to inflation, exchange rate, and population. This study addresses these critical issues, including regional growth dimensions. It uses appropriate quantitative procedures to determine the growth rates needed for India, as well as its states and union territories, to meet the goal of “developed country” status under various scenarios. The time taken to reach this status depends critically on the per capita income to be achieved. The results reveal that approximately 40% of states/union territories will fall short of this target. Generally, only if the target is set at the per capita income of a developed country as of 2023, is it possible to achieve that status. All other scenarios will demand a much higher growth rate. These findings will help policy makers to ensure suitable strategies for achieving their goal.

Private Investment: Intentions versus Realization

Renu Kohli — 2025-01-26

This note examines the growing mismatch between intended private capex and actual fixed assets creation, shedding a fresh light on the longstanding weakness of private investment in India. Using the RBI’s data on projects financed by bank and non-bank financial entities, which is collected annually to gauge the private investment outlook each year, we analyse the significant drop in the extent of planned capex that materialized into actual investment (as measured in the national accounts). We find successive drops in the percentages, especially after the global financial crisis, and thereafter in 2011-12, since when it has remained in the 10% region. We examine a number of potential reasons, like the shift to alternate funding sources – external and internal - not captured in the data, and inflated expectations or over-optimism of private agents, who may subsequently be shedding or scaling back planned projects. We speculate if the planned-to-realized capex ratio or survey-based business expectations are accurate lead indicators as compared to, for example, bank credit, to identify which is a better gauge of demand.

Evolution of the Healthcare Policy Framework in India

Janak Raj — 2025-01-26

This paper traces the history of the evolution of India's healthcare policy framework, focussing on its major objectives, challenges faced, and outcomes emerged. Though the groundwork for the healthcare framework was laid down by the Bhore Committee's well-thought-out report in 1946, it was only in 1983 that the country framed the first National Health Policy (NHP), followed by NHP -2002 and NHP-2017. Several other policy initiatives were also concurrently undertaken. The key themes prevalent across most of these policies and specific initiatives included: (i) increasing public health spending and reducing out-of-pocket or catastrophic health spending; (ii) addressing rural-urban inequalities in healthcare; (iii) developing primary healthcare; and (iv) achieving universal health coverage. Though the country has made a good progress in healthcare facilities post-independence, overall health has remained a low priority, with public health spending at one per cent of GDP - much lower than many of its peers. The rural-urban divide in healthcare services remains wide, with the relative neglect of primary healthcare. The goal of universal health coverage (UHC) is nowhere in sight mainly because of inadequate public health spending. UHC will require public health spending to rise to five per cent of GDP. Therefore, the central and state governments need to commit to raise public health spending to five per cent of GDP in a time-bound manner.

Integrating Government Transfers and Grants with SDGs

Anandajit Goswami — 2025-01-26

Government transfer and grants play a crucial role in performing allocating, distributive and regulatory functions. India is one of the signatory members and fully support for the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which was established by the United Nations in 2015. This commentary evaluates how various centrally sponsored programs are standing out in fulfilling SDGs particularly, sustainable goal 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and 10. Further, states and union territories performance has been assessed by looking at sustainable index score that revealed disproportionate state-wise situation. Thus, the commentary comes up with the suggestive measures to achieve the targets of SDGs, and development outcomes particularly by shedding light on mechanism of vertical transfer along with creating competitive environment amongst the states, in order to align with SDG target achievements in the long run.