Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman attributed India's economic durability to a deliberate decade-long effort spanning fiscal discipline, infrastructure investment, banking-sector overhauls, and ground-level service delivery, speaking at a Saturday event. She also called for stronger strategic self-reliance as new pressures take shape on the global stage.
At the 5th Kautilya Economic Conclave, Sitharaman put forward a definition of resilience centred on an economy's ability to absorb external pressures without veering off a growth path, while retaining enough policy flexibility to respond to disruptions that have not yet materialised. She pointed to the absence of certain outcomes as evidence of that quality: inflation did not spiral out of control, fuel stations did not see queues form, banking-sector stress did not surface, and fiscal consolidation proceeded without being driven by outside compulsion.
Drawing on the ancient Indian treatise the Arthashastra, Sitharaman invoked the Sanskrit dictum "kosha-purvah sarva-arambhah" — which holds that every undertaking rests on the treasury as its foundation — and put forward the view that well-managed public finances give the State room to respond when economic conditions turn adverse.
Pointing to a first-quarter FY27 real GDP expansion rate of 7.8 per cent, consumer price inflation of 4.82 per cent in August 2026, a current account deficit equivalent to 0.5 per cent of GDP in that same quarter, and foreign exchange reserves standing at roughly USD 766 billion, she put forward the view that the economy had weathered the disruptions of the preceding four years without its core indicators deteriorating.
The Finance Minister pointed to a cluster of programmes put in place from 2014 onward — among them the Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile framework, Direct Benefit Transfer, PM Awas Yojana, Swachh Bharat, Ujjwala, Ayushman Bharat, and food security provisions — as evidence of the structural groundwork laid over that period.
Among the figures she highlighted were upwards of 52 crore collateral-free loans approved through the PM MUDRA Yojana programme, alongside restructuring within the banking sector and a recorded 18.8 per cent expansion in non-food credit through to August 2026. The finance minister noted that the FY27 budget had set aside Rs 12.22 lakh crore for capital expenditure on infrastructure. Figures cited in her remarks pointed to a roughly 61 per cent expansion in the national highway network alongside a more than twofold rise in the count of airports in active operation, both measured against a 2014 baseline.
Sitharaman pointed to four areas warranting attention in the period ahead: securing access to strategic resources, keeping global trade open and predictable, building workforce skills, and drawing greater private-sector investment into research and innovation.
Sitharaman put forward the view that over-reliance on any single supply source leaves the economy exposed, pointing to programmes such as the National Critical Mineral Mission, Rare Earth Corridors, India Semiconductor Mission 2.0, and the development of small modular reactors as avenues for building greater resilience — a quality she described as an ongoing process rather than a fixed achievement. She argued that sustained work on foundational strengths would be needed to lift productivity, expand employment, and broaden opportunity on the road to Viksit Bharat by 2047.
