As India celebrates and reflects on its achievements in 75 years of Independence, it is time to take forward the trajectory of the economy’s phenomenal growth, create the right policies and introduce the right levers to achieve greater heights. To chart the growth path of the next 25 years and achieve global leadership position for the Indian economy, Business Today presents the India@100 Economy Summit – Achieving Global Leadership. Under this banner, top leaders from the political, administrative and corporate spheres will come together to discuss, debate and help create a framework of sustained growth for India over the next 25 years.
On the occasion of 75 years of India’s Independence, some growth tips from
industry doyens for the road to 100 years
K.V. Kamath Chairman, National Bank for financing Infrastructure and Development (NABFID)
The building blocks of achieving sustained high growth are very clear. There has to be a mindset to drive infrastructure at a pace and, at the same time, get your equation in terms of water and agriculture right. You should have an industrial sector that should be able to build on its own in terms of positive cash flows and margins. You need a financial system that can support all these things. That, too, happens when you have clean balance sheets. In our case, banks’ balance sheets are clean and corporate India is also deleveraged. The capital market, especially the equity market, has come of age. There is also a new driver the digital revolution. In a digital world, everything becomes more efficient, more competitive and more productive. All these together the unfinished agenda in infrastructure, unfinished agenda on water, growth agenda on industry and manufacturing, and completely new opportunities from digital will propel us down this runway.
Keki Mistry Vice Chairman & CEO, HDFC LTD
India will realise its true potential in the next 25 years. It stands apart from its emerging market peers as it is not a one-trick pony. Further, a stable government committed to sustainable policy measures to facilitate strong growth, create jobs and improve living standards augurs well for the economy. India is a consumption-based economy with strong macroeconomic fundamentals. Its growth drivers are self-sustaining owing to favourable demographics, demand, rising aspirations, growing middle class, rapid urbanisation and entrepreneurship. There is huge under-penetration in financial services, which implies a tremendous potential for growth. Continued focus on financial sector reforms, technological initiatives, employment creation and infrastructure development will make India one of the engines of global growth.
S.N. Subrahmanyan CEO & MD, Larsen & Toubro
India@100 must attempt to redefine the traditional contours of development. Infrastructure must be sustainable. Skill development must be broadbased, and requirement-driven, technology and IT-enabled services must be human-intensive, automation should eliminate hazards and aid precision, mobility must be non-polluting, and growth must be even. I am confident that we will be able to create sustainable and mass affordable housing, water, and waste management infrastructure. One way to achieve such sustainability would be to utilise hydrogen in hard-to-abate sectors. E-commerce platforms as we know today might be reinvented. Transportation will be end-to-end multi-modal. We have bypassed the normal route of financial inclusion using cellphones and products such as UPI. This must be aided by mega-scale renewable power and clean fuels including nuclear energy. In tangible terms, we should attempt to be at least 30 per cent of global manufacturing and contribute a good 15 per cent of the world’s GDP.
Parth Jindal MD, JSW Cement & JSW Paints
India will be a $12-trillion economy and a healthy middle-income country [by 2047]. The country will use its young demographic, engineering and IT prowess to ‘make in India for the world’. It will be a pioneer in the use and advent of green energy from renewables to green hydrogen. Equally important will be ensuring universal healthcare, education and food for all. While India is on the cusp of a fascinating development story, we must work towards reducing the unacceptably high levels of inequality prevalent today. On the technology front, nothing can come in the way of India taking a dominant position on the global stage. I have no doubt we will be at the forefront of high-quality infrastructure.
Nirmal Jain Founder & Chairman, IIFL Group
India is the fastest-growing fintech market in the world with 87 per cent adoption of fintech compared to the global average of 64 per cent. As per data available, in 2020, India processed 25 billion real-time transactions compared to 15 billion in China and only 1.2 billion in the US. The government’s successful push of JAM (Jan Dhan Yojana, Aadhaar and mobile number) accelerated financial inclusion of the masses. UPI has already revolutionised payments. The next stage of innovation is set with OCEN (Open Credit Enablement Network) and AA (Account Aggregator), which are the engines for propelling digital delivery of credit to hitherto credit-deprived MSMEs. To create millions of jobs and bring exponential economic growth, credit and banking services to the unbanked and under-banked small entrepreneurs will happen through the innovative neo-banking platforms.
Amitabh Chaudhry MD & CEO, Axis Bank
Banking is going through a transformative phase in which contextualisation, personalisation and democratisation will be the key drivers. Contextualisation means that banking services will increasingly be embedded in the contextual journeys of customers. For example, rather than going to a bank for mortgage, customers will get instant funding while selecting their dream home on a real estate search site! Personalisation means that power will shift from vanilla product manufacturers to platforms that create exceptional experiences, and customers will be in control of what they want to consume, when and how. For instance, a credit card was a vanilla product, and now BNPL options are providing
Sunil Mittal also assured that there won’t be any significant change in tariffs for 5G customers.
Very soon, the government will be uploading the revised draft of personal data protection bill, which will meet everyone's expectations, says Ashwini Vaishnaw.
On the skill development side, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor encouraged the government to form policies to engage the private sector to offer vocational training to people who did not have formal education.
Using the example of Air India, the Union Minister underscored that he believes it is high time the government changes its approach from that of being a regulator to being a facilitator.
“I accept this challenge, we will have to (create) innovative models, the challenge for our education is affordability, accessibility, quality and inclusivity, this country has to approach multi-prong strategy", Pradhan said.
TCS COO, N Ganapathy Subramaniam outlines top technological trends and thinks moonlighting is “an ethical issue.”
TCS COO N Ganapathy Subramaniam was speaking at Business Today's India@100 Summit in a session moderated by its Editor Sourav Majumdar.
As per Subramaniam, “Moonlighting is an ethical issue, we need to inculcate the ethics and (idea of) being right and if we make something like this for short-term gains, in the long-term we will lose out.”
