New Delhi, Jan 9 (Inditop.com) President Pratibha Patil Saturday urged overseas Indians to participate in and benefit from the country’s “unfolding” growth story.
“In the social infrastructure sector as also physical infrastructure development, India is looking at the investment increasingly in the public-private partnership model. Financing needs are estimated to be over $500 billion in the next five years,” she said, while addressing the valedictory function of the eighth Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) here.
The government was also focussing on improving the quality and quantity of education at all levels and expanding healthcare infrastructure, Patil said, adding this “presents an unprecedented opportunity, including for our overseas community, to participate in and benefit from India’s unfolding growth story”.
“The Indian growth story is an absorbing, exciting and a continuing one. We are a big and a growing market,” the president said and added that the country’s banks and financial institutions are based on “best practices” in fiduciary responsibility and are well-regulated.
“All this enabled us to cope with one of the worst economic downturns in recent history, better than many other countries and it has also meant a quicker recovery,” she said.
Patil specially congratulated the overseas Indian workers in the Gulf who contribute nearly 40 percent of remittances from the diaspora.
“India’s remittances from overseas Indians, estimated at over $50 billion last year, were the highest in the world. What is less known, though, is the fact that nearly 40 percent of these remittances – about $20 billion annually – come from overseas Indian workers in the Gulf consisting of temporary contractual skilled and semi-skilled workers,” she said.
“They often face harsh living and working conditions and are separated from their families for long periods of time. I take this opportunity to salute Indian workers in the Gulf,” the president said.
