India is a success story when compared to the past that one lived in. A context to its past before 1991 is crucial to discuss.

Its cities Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi, including Bengaluru suffered from the lack of infrastructure of any kind other than in areas where the wealthy lived.

Open defecation was real in Indian cities, one just had to walk around the compounds of the old Mills of Mumbai and the slums of Chennai to realize how unclean life and living conditions were.

Electricity, water and sanitation were all broken systems. As for roads it took 20 plus days for a truck to reach Delhi from Chennai. Inter-State bureaucracy and taxes curtailed the movement of goods. A manufacturing business was for large corporations who had the nod of the government. These large corporations created local businesses, or SMEs, around which came trading businesses of various sizes, both wholesale and retail.

One must thank Indian education, and its aspiring citizens, for having changed the outcome of this country over the years. It was the balance of payments crisis, in 1991, that led the Congress-run central government to change the course of events that transformed India.

The crisis was severe as India’s foreign exchange reserves had fallen below $1 billion because of a high fiscal deficit and current account deficit. The Gulf War had further impacted India because oil prices began to sky rocket.

India’s tryst with socialism had to take a new direction. Its policy makers realised that they had to expand the economy to ensure that the country’s businesses became competitive globally.

First the rupee was devalued to make exports competitive, it tightened interest rates to curb inflation and imports were curbed.

Also a $2.2 billion loan from the IMF with India fronting gold as collateral changed everything hence.

Multi-national companies began to infuse capital and they even pioneered IT offshoring which enabled the rise of a new middle class.

Road, air, rail infrastructure and GST

It had 23 lakh kilometers of road network in 1991, which has now increased four times. The connectivity has improved such that it takes seven days for a truck to get to Delhi from Chennai or Bengaluru. Things improved because of the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax which abolished inter-State road tax, which created significant bureaucratic delays and graft at truck layovers.

The increase in road network also meant that many more Indians travelled across its cities. In 1999 the total car sales were only 500,000 units per year. It is now estimated that it sells 3 million cars a year. It sells close to 20 million two wheelers per year. With its growth in GDP, which is over $3 trillion per year, the economy has expanded such that its per capita income is $2500 per year. It was $600 in 2006.

Capital inflows in stock markets, real estate, insurance, retail, automotive, logistics, and banking meant that infrastructure had to grow.

The country had only four major airports in 1991, now it has 103 domestic airports and 34 international airports. It has a total of 487 airstrips.

Its total rail network is 69000 kilometres, but is yet to modernize into digital systems and modern standard gauge rails for faster trains. Railways are still a lifeline to folks who live in 600k villages in India.

With infrastructure growth what increased was the jobs being created which increased spending in retail. This can be witnessed by the rise of the Indian retail market, which grew from just $300 billion in 2008 to $1 trillion in 2025.

Telecom networks

As many Indians enjoyed the fruits of the economy’s expansion, connectivity in the form of telecommunications which coincided in the form of the fall in broadband prices, availability of affordable smart phones with smart financing and fall in data costs increased connectivity of Indians across geographies. Today WhatsApp has been used by farmers to communicate with each other about prices offered for intermediaries that buy produce.

The government itself has built the Unified Payment Interface to facilitate cashless payments in India through Aadhaar Identification, which in itself has helped the government transfer money directly into bank accounts of individuals who need benefits. Through the Jan Dhan program the government has ensured there are more than 530 million bank accounts created for individuals. It has enabled millions of small and medium units, local traders to collect money digitally rather than face the cumbersome aspect of storing and delivering cash to banks.

Digital networks have become an important aspect of India’s growth. At least, everyone today can be informed, but they can be misinformed too because there is too much information or misinformation.

The future and its challenges – energy and agricultural infrastructure

The government continues to have a significant challenge in creating an infrastructure that can match environmental changes such as climate change and the destruction of forests as cities continue to expand.

Today only a quarter of its energy comes from renewable sources. The renewable energy in operation is around 210 GW and its capacity has to increase. The energy network is one piece that India will have to modernize.

Its agriculture needs to accept climate change and focus on water conservation, drought resistant seeds. India has to pioneer hydroponic agriculture and greenhouse agriculture. Currently its landholdings are small, 5000 square feet per farmer, and its yields are ten times smaller than that of large scale farms in the Netherlands. However, its biggest strength will be in innovating towards making seeds that are resistant to adverse climatic effects. Water management in th form of dependence on monsoons, ground water, rivers and canals systems need a complete rethinking of lack of water can set the country behind.

As for open defecation, sanitation and cleanliness, the government realises the benefits of building toilets across the country. It has ensured that 100 million people have access to toilets and have rid the society of open defecation. However, around 60 million still don’t have access to toilets, yet the belief is that things are going to change as India becomes part of the information network and people get to demand more for upward mobility. It depends on the political will to ensure that access continues be provided for people to demand upward mobility.

Its biggest challenge is in its education infrastructure which has to prepare for the era of AI, perhaps a detailed study about that is going to be in order.

What has happened is this, India is going through a new discovery of its cultural identity and is fitting itself with the economic realities of the time. Perhaps it’s time to for the political, financial and scientific powers to understand that we need infrastructure that potentially can handle environmental risks. Just like cancer wipes out savings and maxes out the insurance, bad planning over the foreseeable future can max Indian infrastructure out to create gross inequalites. Over and out.