India can achieve over 10 pc growth with embracing tech and innovation across sectors: FM Sitharaman

Chennai: Riding on technology and innovation across sectors, India can even achieve over 10 per cent economic growth towards becoming a Viksit Bharat by 2047, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Saturday. FM Sitharaman, while participating in a fireside chat organised by the IIT Madras Alumni Association here, said achieving such growth would require a lot more effort from all stakeholders. “We have too many naysayers. We have too many people who have vicarious pleasure being derived if India fails. We really cannot afford that. We need to nudge these people to think positively,” the finance minister noted. Hailing the growth of startups, the Finance Minister further stated that technological interventions had made a key difference in connecting agriculture producers to markets and improving productivity. Drones and aerial geospatial instruments for precision mapping of land parcels have empowered the farming community, she mentioned. FM Sitharaman also cited the use of point-of-sale (POS) machines in fertiliser distribution. Under pilot testing, the POS system recorded details of the farmer, land and crop being cultivated and provided farmers with information on the quantity of fertiliser that may be sufficient based on soil, irrigation, and crop conditions. Finance Minister also unveiled a book, titled ‘Cashless Nation: How UPI Changed Everything’, by Dr. Santanu Paul and B. Sambamurthy at ‘Sangam 2026’, the annual conference of the IIT Madras Alumni Association and IIT Madras. The book tells the inside story of India’s digital payments transformation and the conception, creation and extraordinary rise of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). FM Sitharaman last month said UPI is now operational across 11 countries, including France, Singapore, the UAE, Greece and Mauritius. “From powering seamless payments in India to enabling digital transactions across borders, UPI continues to take our digital public infrastructure to the world,” FM Sitharaman said. She further stated that UPI-enabled payment points have grown around 260 times since 2018, taking digital payments deeper into every corner of the country and providing greater access and convenience. FM Sitharaman also highlighted the scale of UPI transactions, saying one out of every two real-time digital payment transactions globally are taking place in India. –IANS na/