New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday underlined the need for a “metamorphosis" in thinking and governance to help India leapfrog to a higher growth orbit.

Inaugurating the ‘Transforming India Lecture Series’, Modi said, “If India is to meet the challenge of change, mere incremental progress is not enough. A metamorphosis is needed and that is why my vision for India is rapid transformation and not gradual evolution."

He added that the Indian government needs to change laws, eliminate unnecessary procedures, speed up processes and adopt technology as India cannot march through the 21st century with the administrative systems of the 19th century.

Reiterating his vision for transformational change, Modi said, “The younger generation in our own country is thinking and aspiring so differently, that government can no longer afford to remain rooted in the past. Even in families, the relationship between the young and old has changed." He added that with the spread of new technology, the situation is often reversed. This increases the challenge for the government in communicating and in meeting rising expectations.

Modi said that “there was a time when development was believed to depend on the quantity of capital and labour. Today we know that it depends as much on the quality of institutions and ideas". He added that we now live in an age where change is constant and we are variables.

The Prime Minister told the gathering that transformation of India cannot happen without transformation in governance, transformation in governance cannot happen without transformation in mindset and transformation in mindset cannot happen without transformative ideas.

The purpose of the “Transforming India Lecture Series", which started with an address by Singapore deputy prime minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, is to draw the best from the wisdom and knowledge of eminent persons, who changed or influenced change to make their nations better places.

Shanmugaratnam said that India is uniquely placed to recast its global narrative but it cannot be done on current policies and that India needs to work on four challenges ailing the Indian economy.

These include the widening gap between the number of larger and small firms, the lack of deeper strategic interaction with the world economy, the need to focus on increasing global exports by India and the failure to shift the working population from low productivity jobs like agriculture to the formal sector. He said that opening up to the world is not a zero sum game at its heart but about constant learning and this culture needs to be spread across India.

“India needs not just rapid growth but inclusive growth but this cannot be achieved on current day policies. The pace of change has to be stepped up. You are on good batting wicket, but you cannot continue this process by hitting singles. You have to hit 4s and 6s," he said, adding that India should invest in social mobility. He added that India needs to act with a sense of urgency because it was in race against demography and technology.

The areas that India needed to focus on are education, healthcare and sanitation and cities, he said.

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