In a 30-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, Nilesh Shah, who is a member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council and also Managing Director of the Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Co, said there are four steps which must be scrupulously observed if India wishes to reach double digit growth in 2021-22.They are a) a ban all large gatherings, whether political or religious, b) maintain social distancing, c) scrupulously wear masks all the time and d) sanitisation and hand-washing.Shah said if the government is forced to declare a second nationwide lockdown, requiring it to announce a sizeable lockdown relief package, his preference is that this unforeseen additional expenditure should be financed through a gold amnesty scheme, which raises revenues from the sizeable amount of gold in private hands, and by fully meeting, or even exceeding, the budget’s disinvestment target and the government’s intention to sell assets. In the interview he said strategic privatisation rather than disinvestment of shares was the right procedure.