If India continues to clock the unprecedented economic growth of the past few fiscals for another 5-10 years, poverty, hunger and disease will be scourges of the past, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Monday, predicting a bright future for what he called an emerging power in world's eyes.

"The whole world is eagerly watching the manner in which India is making rapid economic progress. And this economic growth is happening within the framework of a liberal democracy," the prime minister said in his Independence Day speech.

"It is my belief that India's future is extremely bright and that this future is indeed, possible. In order to achieve this, we need to focus on achieving rapid economic growth and on ensuring social justice," said Manmohan Singh, who turns 73 next month.

The Oxford-Cambridge educated economist-prime minister said his multi-party coalition government had listed seven areas critical to India's progress and was concentrating on them since it took charge on May 22 last year.

He listed them as agriculture, irrigation, education, health, employment, urban renewal and infrastructure. But he also promised development of India' metros, six-lane highways connecting them, world-class airports and flowing electricity.

The prime minister also paid glowing tributes to India scientists, doctors and engineers and said: "The world today sees India as a major knowledge power whose people are skilled, competent, hard working and peace loving."

In the speech dominated by his thoughts and vision for India's economic and social progress, Manmohan Singh lamented that the area to which his government attached the highest priority is also the one that lags behind other sectors.

"The growth in agriculture has not been at the required pace. Even today, over 60 percent of our population is dependent on agriculture and every farmer has a right to be a participant in our economic growth processes," he said.

"It is our hope that in the coming years, agricultural growth becomes rapid and we have a new green revolution," he said while promising a scientific centre for the farm sector in every district of the country by 2007.

Manmohan Singh, among the country's first prime ministers to speak about urban renewal, also reiterated his resolve to make Indian cities better places to live along with the grand plan to breathe new life into the country's rural areas.

"Today, a third of our population lives in urban areas and keeping in mind the speed at which urbanization is taking place, the day is not far off when over 50 percent of India's population will be residing in urban areas," he said.

"We taught the world the basic concepts of urban planning. However, today our cities are often unable to meet the basic needs of their residents on many counts," he said, highlighting the focus of the National Urban Renewal Mission.

The prime minister also focussed on infrastructure and said economic growth was intrinsically linked to the availability of good roads, railways, electricity, airports and ports. His speech listed several initiatives on this front.

Among them is a dedicated railway freight corridor between New Delhi and Kolkata and between New Delhi and Mumbai, at a cost of Rs.250 billion ($5.6 billion) and the construction of world class airports and seaports.

Manmohan Singh also referred to electricity shortage as a major inconvenience and said some of the issues that were hampering the growth of nuclear energy programme were addressed during his historic official visit to the US recently.

"In the next 10 years, in addition to the 150,000 megawatt of capacity being added in the thermal and hydro sectors, another 40,000 megawatt could be generated through nuclear energy," the prime minister said.

"I have often said that, excepting for the poorest sections of society, giving electricity free of cost to other sections will worsen the financial condition of our electric utilities," he said, applying the same logic to energy fuels.

Even though successive political leaders have often termed India's mushrooming population as one of the biggest hurdles in its development, Manmohan Singh was not one to buy that argument and instead focussed on how to tap its latent potential.

"We have a large proportion of young people in our population. We will need to invest in their education and health so that their future prospects are bright. By doing so, our population will become our biggest asset," he said.

Some of the prime minister's initiatives spelt out in the speech included more investment in storage of farm products, launch of a horticulture mission and a rain-fed development programme to remove problems of farmers in dry land areas.

"The effort of our government has been that while we continue to make rapid economic progress, the benefits of this progress and growth must reach all sections of society in a fair manner," the prime minister said.

"Our country is witnessing unprecedented economic growth this point in time. Last year, our economic growth rate was seven percent and it is likely to be similar this year as well.

"I am confident that if we maintain this momentum of growth for the next 5-10 years, then it would be possible for us to eradicate poverty, ignorance, hunger and disease from our country."

In conclusion, the prime minister said, "India is on the road to progress. The whole world is watching us with expectation.

"There comes a time in the history of a nation when it can be said that the time has come to make history. We are today at the threshold of such an era."

-- (IANS)