Modi Reforms: Can Big Ideas Become Big Outcomes?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has shared an article by former NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant reflecting on his years of working with him, and on a recurring idea that runs through some of India’s major policy experiments of the past decade: big ambitions matter, but their real test lies in execution.

Kant’s article in The Indian Express revisits several episodes from his career in government — from the making of Dholera as a greenfield industrial city to the Ease of Doing Business reforms, the Aspirational Districts Programme and India’s G20 presidency. 

Sharing the article on X, Modi highlighted Kant’s observations on his working style, the importance of dreaming big and the role of reforms in driving transformation. He also pointed to the Aspirational Districts Programme and reforms aimed at making India easier, simpler and more efficient for citizens and businesses.

Taken together, Kant’s recollections offer more than a personal account. They provide a window into a particular approach to policymaking: set a larger objective, build the institutional machinery around it, measure progress and push the system towards delivery.



When 150 Sq Km Was Not Big Enough

One of Kant’s earliest examples comes from his time as CEO of the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Corporation.

He was working on the idea of a new greenfield city in Gujarat. The proposal had encountered resistance because it required around 150 sq km of land.

Then he met Narendra Modi, who was Gujarat’s chief minister at the time.

Kant recalls that Modi questioned the scale of the proposal and suggested that the project should instead cover 750 sq km. The Gujarat government subsequently enacted the Special Investment Region Act in 2009 and declared Dholera Special Investment Region along with its master plan.

The episode captures the first theme of Kant’s essay: development planning is also about the scale of the ambition.

But the harder part begins after the ambition.

A large idea needs land, legislation, infrastructure, institutions and an administrative mechanism capable of carrying it through. Dholera therefore becomes an early example of a larger governance question: can the state create the conditions required to turn an idea into an economic asset?

Pm Modi g20

The Reform Agenda Was About Removing Friction

When Modi took office in 2014, India was ranked 142nd in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business rankings. Addressing that position triggered an overhaul that included the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, GST and the removal of outdated rules, regulations and procedures. Kant says India subsequently moved up 79 places in the ranking.

That ranking needs context. The World Bank discontinued the Doing Business report in 2021 after identifying data irregularities and subsequently moved to a new framework, Business Ready (B-READY), which takes a broader look at business regulations, public services and operational efficiency.

The larger reform lesson remains relevant.

For an entrepreneur, regulation is experienced not as a policy document but as a series of interactions — registering a company, obtaining approvals, paying taxes, resolving disputes, accessing infrastructure and eventually exiting a business.

Reform therefore becomes meaningful when it reduces the friction between starting an economic activity and actually being able to conduct it.

That is a considerably harder task than simply changing a rule.

From National Metrics to the District Level

The focus then shifted from national macro-metrics down to hyper-local execution with the Aspirational Districts Programme.

At NITI Aayog, Kant says he was asked to focus on India’s most backward districts. That eventually became the Aspirational Districts Programme, launched in January 2018 to transform 112 of the country’s most under-developed districts. 

The model changed how development outcomes were monitored.

Instead of relying only on broad state or national averages, districts were measured against specific indicators covering health and nutrition, education, agriculture and water resources, financial inclusion and skill development, and infrastructure. The programme operates through three principles: convergence, collaboration and competition, with monthly delta rankings tracking incremental progress.

Kant highlights improvements in areas including health, education, agriculture and basic infrastructure.

The larger policy experiment was to bring measurement closer to the last mile.

A state may report improvement. But what happens in a particular district? Which indicators are moving? Which districts are progressing faster? What can one district learn from another?

That creates a different relationship between government spending and government performance.

It also illustrates a broader evolution in policymaking: from schemes to systems of measurement and delivery.

Amitabh Kant G20

The Next Challenge Is Not Just Reform

Kant’s reflections eventually move into newer areas – AI, quantum computing, geospatial technology, drones, defence, space and green hydrogen.

This is where the nature of India’s policy challenge starts changing.

Removing outdated rules can make an economy more efficient. Building district-level delivery systems can improve access to basic services. But frontier sectors require a different combination of state capacity and private capability.

AI requires compute infrastructure, data and talent, while semiconductors demand immense capital and specialised supply chains. Space technology relies on patient capital and rigorous testing; green hydrogen demands simultaneous market creation and technology deployment.

In these sectors, the question is no longer simply whether government can remove friction. It is whether government, industry, research institutions and investors can build the capabilities needed to compete globally.

India’s policy challenge is therefore moving from removing friction to building capability.

That is a more complicated phase of economic policymaking.

From Domestic Reform to the Global Stage

Kant’s final major example is the G20.

After his tenure at NITI Aayog, he became India’s G20 Sherpa. He writes about the difficulty of building consensus amid geopolitical tensions and the effort that eventually produced the New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration at the 2023 G20 Summit. 

The significance of the example is less about diplomacy alone and more about the operating principle Kant identifies throughout his essay.

Dholera was an exercise in imagining something larger.

Ease-of-doing-business reforms attempted to reduce systemic friction.

The Aspirational Districts Programme pushed measurement and competition into local administration.

The G20 required consensus among major economies despite geopolitical differences.

Different challenges. Different tools.

But Kant sees a common thread: define an ambitious objective and then attempt to align institutions around it.

That is also where the next test for India becomes visible.

The first phase of transformation can be about creating infrastructure, removing old rules and establishing new institutions. The next phase has to demonstrate whether those institutions can repeatedly deliver better productivity, stronger businesses, deeper technology capabilities and improved human development.

The Hard Part Comes After the Big Idea

Kant’s article is a personal account, and his assessment of Modi’s leadership is his own. But the policy episodes he recounts raise a question that goes beyond any individual leader.

India has entered a period in which the scale of ambition is already large – from advanced manufacturing and semiconductors to AI, green energy, space and infrastructure.

The harder task is execution at scale.

Big ideas can change the direction of policy. Reforms can change the rules. But the real test of governance is whether those changes continue to produce outcomes after the announcement is over.

In the end, big ideas change policy directions, but institutionalised execution determines whether those ideas survive the news cycle to become permanent national assets.

Read Amitabh Kant’s full article in The Indian Express

 

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Jack Samson has earned a reputation for his sharp takes on altcoin cycles and his data-driven market analysis. With a background in quantitative finance, Jack provides insights into tokenomics, scalability debates, and investor psychology. His articles often bridge technical analysis with fundamental research, guiding readers through the noise of crypto volatility.