Recently government of India has announced its aim to become 5 trillion dollar economy by 2024. It is a optimistic dream if all challenges are addressed efficiently. Policies such as Make in India, Financial inclusion, reduction in corporate tax, mudra loan, priority sector lending etc. have been put on the table to achieve this goal. These all are good policies and will give result if implemented efficiently. However, one thing government is ignoring is to curb brain drain challenges.
Brain drain means migration of our human capital to other countries for their personal growth. Many eminent person like Raghuram Rajan, Satya Nadella, Pranav mistry ,2019 noble prize winner Abhijeet banerjee have migrated to west in search of better academic and personal growth. No doubt they are making us proud however if they would have performed their duties on home soil, our country would have benefitted much. Every year nearly 5000 students get admitted for PHD in US and 5% of them return back. They return back because of either family reason or patriotism (This is my personal observation).
It is not like that government is doing nothing to solve this Brain drain issue. GoI has launched PMRF scheme which provides financial assistance to IITs and NITs and some renowned institute students for pursuing PHD. Apart from this GoI is now focusing on start-up companies and assisting them financially as well as legally to compete with global companies. Parliament will bring new education policy bill in this winter session and this time it is expected to have more % share for Higher education expenditure.
So now one can ask how Brain drain will help India to achieve its GDP target? India is lacking far behind western countries and Asian giants in field of technology. Our mostly defence equipments are imported. We import solar panels. No Indian companies have developed 5G technology. These all challenges are because India invests very less in research and development. If we start developing and manufacturing in our country it will surely solve many social issues and help to achieve GDP target. Government must focus on this and equip their labs with better facilities and provide better workplace and opportunity to stop Brain drain.
Many MNCs have technical center in India but they all just have managerial job and act as a interface between parent company and customer. So its high time for government to step in form better efficient policies to solve this situation and make India global leader.
amit kumar 