Chennai (Tamil Nadu) [India], November 12 (ANI): Highlighting Centre's development push, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday said the Indian economy will become the third-largest in the world by 2027.

Addressing an event here, Shah said India will become a 5 trillion-dollar economy by 2025.

In the last eight years, the Union Home Minister said, India has become the fifth-largest economy from the 11th position that it held earlier, leaving Britain behind.

He said, "Even a recent study conducted by Morgan Stanley predicts that no one can stop the Indian economy from holding the 3rd rank in the world by 2027."Reiterating the pivotal role the infrastructure sector has to play in achieving the feat, he said the Centre has introduced a number of effective policies to make it possible.

"Be it in the space sector, drone sector, or making India the hub of defence manufacturing, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has brought about major changes in the existing policies," he added.

The Home minister added that the Prime Minister has given the biggest opportunity to Tamil Nadu to attract investment in the defence sector by introducing the state's defence industry corridor connecting Chennai, Tiruchirapalli, Coimbatore, Salem and Hosur.

"Be it formulating policies for the coal sector, the commercial mining sector, for startups or for pushing the banking sector ahead, the Narendra Modi government has introduced a slew of effective and transparent policies," Shah said.

Reiterating that to strengthen research and development, the Modi government has introduced new policies in different sectors.

H said, "I will give only one example here. When the world was battling the pandemic of the century, India was one among the few countries that produced its own vaccine. Not only that, till now, we have administered 225 crore doses of vaccines while helping 85 countries to lift themselves from the crisis by sending them vaccines."He said due to the poverty alleviation programmes of the Modi government, more than 60 crore people in the country are contributing to the economy today.

"Earlier they were so entangled in fighting their day-to-day battles, mostly poverty, they could hardly think of contributing to the economy. But the Narendra Modi government has given every such household toilets, power connection, house, gas connection and even health expenditure of up to Rs 5 lakh," he said.

He added that on account of these facilities the living standard of 60 crore people has seen an improvement and they have started contributing to the economy. "I think such moves have given a big boost to the economy by igniting hope among these 60-crore people," he said.

He stated that it was due to political stability and transparent governance that India has become a fast-paced economy today. "The achievements of India are today acknowledged by the entire world. The IMF has labelled India as a bright spot in a dark zone," he said.

He added that according to an assesment by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), India would rank 2nd in the G20 with a 6.8 per cent growth in GDP in 2022-23.

"The IMF also estimates that in 2023-24, india would rank first in the G20 with 6.1 per cent growth in GDP," he saidhe said that the government has focused on expenditure and in the year 2022-23, it increased capital expenditure by 46.8 per cent from last year and the GST collection in October 2022 was at Rs 1,51,718 crores, which is the second biggest mop-up till date.

He said in the same month, the number of UPI transactions in India stood at 12.11 lakh crore and 21 lakh vehicles were sold, which is 7 lakh more than last year.

Elaborating on the government's special focus on Tamil Nadu, Shah said, "The Narendra Modi government has focused on the development of Tamil Nadu as a priority sector. During the UPA government from 2009 to 2014, Tamil Nadu got Rs 62,000 crores as tax devolution. Now, it is has grown to Rs 1,19,455 crores, a 91 per cent increase."The Union Home minister added that the grant-in-aid to the southern state during the UPA period was Rs 35,000 crores. However, it increased to Rs 95,734 crores under PM Modi, which works out to an increase of 171 per cent. (ANI)