India to achieve Viksit Bharat by 2047 despite strong global headwinds: CEA

Chief Economic Advisor to Government of India V Anantha Nageswaran addressing the media on Economic Survey of India 2025-26 in New Delhi on Thursday
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SUSHIL KUMAR VERMA

The Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran on Thursday evoked the intrepid journalist Mark Tully’s treatise on India’s indefatigable spirit to express optimism that the goal of Viksit Bharat by 2047 would be achieved despite strong global headwinds.

“The late Sir Mark Tully said … I am an optimist because I have seen the Indian people do the impossible every single day. We concur with him and, as a mark of respect to him, the Indian people will do the impossible every single day in the next 25 years on their way to Viksit Bharat,” said Nageswaran in a media briefing after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tabled the Economic Survey for fiscal year 2025-26 in both Houses of Parliament.

economic priorities

Nageswaran said the Economic Survey lays out a clear roadmap for India’s economic priorities over the next 25 years, with a strong focus on manufacturing and exports. “The Economic Survey cover symbolises the key message that we have on the importance of manufacturing and exports for India’s future growth in a very fragmented world and a fractious global environment,” he said.

Summing up the survey, Nageswaran said: “We have done well, we are doing better, post-Covid.” However, the world is more unpredictable and dangerous. Quoting Robert Frost’s immemorable lines, which are historically remembered in India as being the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s inspiration, he said: “’We have promises to keep and miles to go before we can sleep.’ There is need to re-imagine the way we are organised as a state and function,” he said, emphasising that businesses and households have to internalise their responsibilities.

The CEA said India stands out as a rare “oasis of macro stability” at a time when the global economy is facing uncertainty, conflict and slowing growth. He said India’s growth performance, stable inflation and strong external position underline its resilience in a fractured global environment.

“India is indeed an oasis of macro stability in an otherwise turbulent world. Numbers speak for themselves,” said the CEA. He added that India’s growth figures for the current year and the medium term “stand out in comparison to any other part of the world”.

According to the CEA, the survey reviews India’s current economic performance while also addressing how the country plans to pursue long-term growth goals amid global unpredictability. “The global context is somewhat unpredictable and even dangerous,” he said, adding that the survey discusses how India must prepare as a country and as a society.

Published on January 29, 2026