Jaipur, Jan. 16 -- Better primary and secondary education, focus on skill development, and healthcare, along with lessons from China's growth over the last two decades, when it trailed India, could transform India's economic trajectory, experts said at the 19th Jaipur Literature Festival on Thursday. "(Former Prime Minister Jawaharlal) Nehru emphasised on two aspects: being self-reliant and equal opportunities in every sector. It is true India has witnessed a significant economic growth after the independence. By 1989, we also reached at a stage where we even left China behind despite both the countries had probably started from a similar point in 1947. But China had surpassed us by 2009 and now we have become heavily dependent on that country. We need to understand why we failed to achieve what China did in this period to re-shape our own economy," former Planning Commission member Arun Maira said. Maira was joined by veteran economy journalist AK Bhattacharya and professor Vidya Mahambare in a discussion titled 'Reimagining India's economy'. Bhattacharya responded to Maira by highlighting policymaking decisions that propelled China's sharp economic growth. "Almost 90% of our workforce are still in the unorganised sector. Our economic policies have failed to pull them out and establish in any productive secondary sectors. The biggest reason is that we have also failed in our healthcare policies, primary and secondary education policies and also skill development policies. We did not focus on them as China did," he said. Professor Mahambare argued that policymakers must not view India as uniform across states. "States like Tamil Nadu, Kerala are at par with China in per capita income, manufacturing growth etc. Tamil Nadu has about 500 factories per million population while Bihar has only 22 factories per million population. Most of the North Indian states failed to ensure growth in their education, and skill development where the south Indian states excelled," she said. She also emphasised China's empowered local governance. "India, despite being a federal country, is still very much centralised," she said....