Revisiting the Growth and Development Strategies in the Context of Environmental Issues

The central question that the economic theories and models attempt to answer is: how development and growth materialise so as
to uplift the living conditions of people at large. Indeed the pathway of growth and development is laid in accordance with the principles and theories that have been evolved over years thanks to illustrious descriptions of growth strategies by economists and the consequent academic discussions based on such theories. Broadly speaking, theories of growth and development formulated hitherto have been precisely premised on two theoretical foundations viz. Keynesian and Neo-classical frameworks, the former advocating the intervention of government policies while the latter reaffirming its faith in the automatic readjustment being brought about by the market forces.  For instance, while the Harrod Model was premised on the Keynesian principle of demand management, Solow, on the other hand, was taking inspiration from the Neo-Classical idea of market clearing and the forces of market orienting and reorienting towards the equilibrium conditions. These poles-apart approaches and discussions surrounding such approaches have become partially redundant in recent times with the emergence of universal issues pertaining to sustainable development which takes into account environment as an indispensable thing to be factored into the growth models. Apart from this, the issues of inclusive growth aiming at an all-encompassing growth process and climate change induced natural disasters like the one which hit Kerala, the southern edge of India, have added to the necessity of evolving new strategies of growth and development.  Against this backdrop, this paper attempts to look into the growth and development strategies that India has embraced so far, besides presenting the need to redesign the policies in accordance with the emerging requirements of economies.