7.8% growth needed over 22 years to become high-income nation: Planning official

Patna: India will need to grow by 7.8% on an average over the next 22 years to achieve the country's aspirations of becoming a high-income nation by 2047, said state planning and development department official Prem Prakash here on Friday.Speaking as a chief guest at a World Population Day (July 11) event, organised by Population Research Centre (PRC) of Patna University here, Prakash quoted the newly launched World Bank Report and observed that Bihar has taken up the agenda of Sustainable Development Goals in the right earnest. Appreciating the 2025 theme of the World Population Day, ‘Promoting sustainable population growth and health awareness', he said that the country, along with the state, would develop only when the exponential population growth was checked considerably, and people were made to lead a healthier life.Former joint director of PRC, Dilip Kumar, said that even though Bihar has witnessed some decline in infant mortality rate and maternal mortality ratio during the last few years, they are still much higher in the state as compared to the national average. Public health facilities in the state are far from satisfactory, and a lot needs to be done for improving the status of maternity and child care, he said. Prominent among those who addressed the meeting included Barna Ganguly and Manoj Narayan of state planning and development department, and Manoj Kumar among other faculty members of PU statistics department. Earlier, PRC's honorary director Amit Kumar welcomed the participants.