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There's no gainsaying the fact that the economic-reform policies undertaken in 1991 have positively impacted the Indian economy. India’s average GDP growth increased from 4% to about 6.5%, till it hit the purple patch during the period mentioned above. But India has already carried out the easier parts of reform. Achieving a growth rate of 10% plus requires it to tackle the difficult part.

And, India is failing miserably on this front. Despite the hype in the international media about India's global integration, economic reform has been halting and hesitant. Reforming the government itself and saving on the precious resources by bringing down corruption and reducing the subsidy burden has not taken place.

It needs to be remembered, that there are two types of subsidy. Given the extent of corruption in the delivery mechanism, the subsidy bill has been bloating, although the intended recipients end up getting only a fraction of the benefits. Similarly for various social sector schemes, which are a must for a country where a large number of people are still poor. As a result, India’s revenue and fiscal deficits have remained way above the comfort levels.
 
There has been no major initiative to reform India’s educational sector (especially the quality of education provided by the Government), save for increased allocation for the sector during budget exercises, much of which is again siphoned off due to corruption. As a result while India churns out graduates by huge numbers, roughly half of them are unemployable.
 
Labour reform is another case in point. Over the years, numerous academic studies and official reports, including the Second National Labour Commission Report (2002), have recommended major reforms of India’s labour laws. The problem is absence of political will. Until that happens, the expansion of decent non-agricultural jobs will condemn many millions to insecure and ill-paid, informal urban employment.
 
While India desperately needs labour reform, the politicians use up a lot of their time discussing and debating reservations in education and jobs based on castes and religions and hardly on economic background. And, even those are riddled with corruption. More so when the perceived champions of castes and religions are assured of votes from those whose cause they purportedly champion.

The neglect of the agricultural sector (on which, even now a majority of India’s population depend upon) is also widely known. Lack of capacity building haunts this sector and even more than 60 years after independence, food security remains a concern. A large number of rural population lives under abject poverty at less than USD 2 per day. In this background, how can India reap the supposedly rich (read young population) demographic dividend is anybody’s guess.

So, what can propel India to the higher growth path? Global growth for one, has to revert to the boom experienced earlier. To me, this is not going to happen. A tectonic shift in India’s productivity growth could be another. But due to the constraints mentioned above, this is also highly unlikely.