Statement during the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of India in the 41^st session of the UPRWorking Group(7-18 November 2022)delivered by Mr. Shashi Pal, Director, NITI Aayog

[Geneva, 10^th November 2022]

Mr. President,

I am Shashi Pal and I speak on behalf of the National Institution for Transforming India.

2.  During the past 75 years, India has made unprecedented growth and development. For instance:

• We are the world’s second biggest food producer growing about 315 MT of food grains
• Recent surveys point to a balanced gender ratio and life expectancy at birth to above 70 years
• In the last 16 years, 415 million Indians have left lives of poverty behind.
• India has the world’s third largest ecosystems for start-ups with over 77,000 start-ups across 656 districts of the country, of which 107 are unicorns with a valuation of over US $ 300 billion, as of September 2022.
• The 650 million active internet users in the country today will expectedly cross 900 million by 2025. Much of the growth in internet users continues to be driven by rural India.
• We have 1,043 universities, 42,343 colleges, and 11,779 stand-alone institutions, many of them being private initiatives.

3.  India is strongly committed to holistic, inclusive and sustainable development and to meeting the goals and targets set under the Sustainable Development Goals framework on time.

4.  India has developed a robust Sustainable Development Goals localisation model, whereby, States and Districts drive the adoption of global goals and targets, with local means of implementation, monitoring, and evaluation framework.

5.  India regularly assesses its achievements on Sustainable Development Goals both at the Union and State level and presents its Voluntary National Review to the United Nations High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development. The first Voluntary National Review was submitted in 2017 and the second one in 2020.

6.  Despite the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic, India in 2022 has achieved more than 50% target in most of the goals of Agenda 2030.

I thank you.