New Delhi, Oct 3 — Vice-President (V-P) C.P. Radhakrishnan said on Saturday that the country’s economic resilience will ultimately depend on whether the benefits of growth reach every citizen and region.
Delivering the inaugural address at the '5th Kautilya Economic Conclave' here, V-P Radhakrishnan said the true measure of resilience is “our ability to ensure that no citizen, no region is left behind. GDP alone cannot be the measure of development”.
V-P Radhakrishnan placed women’s participation at the centre of the inclusive agenda, arguing that access to education and economic opportunities would allow women to increasingly take leadership roles.
“We want to empower the woman, give them the right to education and they will empower themselves,” he noted.
India was undergoing a positive transformation as it moves from being a developing economy towards its ambition to becoming a developed economy, he said, adding that policymakers would have to keep track of inclusivity alongside headline growth.
“Inclusion can become an instrument of resilience,” V-P Radhakrishnan said, adding that resilience should not be viewed only in terms of financial markets or large infrastructure projects.
Financial inclusion and improvements in the delivery of welfare benefits illustrate how social inclusion could itself strengthen an economy’s ability to withstand shocks.
V-P Radhakrishnan cited the Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile (JAM) architecture, which enabled wider financial inclusion and direct benefit transfers, as an example of this approach.
More than 25 crore Indians had moved out of poverty over the past decade, V-P Radhakrishnan added. He described the Goods and Services Tax (GST) as India’s biggest tax reform.
India’s real GDP grew by 7.8 per cent in Q1 FY 2026-27, against 6.9 per cent during Q1 FY2025-26. Real GDP (constant prices) in Q1 FY 2026-27 is estimated at Rs 81.36 lakh crore, against Rs 75.46 lakh crore in Q1 FY 2025-26.