India's bureaucracy now has its best chance to become a catalyst of change. Honest civil servants taking decisions in good faith must be protected, believes India Inc [REPLUG]
If the Indian economy has to grow at a rate of 10 percent, certain risks need to be taken and government officials taking decisions with good intentions must not face harassment. This was among the key messages from the latest edition of the Forbes India CEO Dialogues held in New Delhi on March 17, where senior bureaucrats of the Indian government and captains of industry discussed the theme ‘25 years on, has the Indian economy liberalised enough?’
The panel discussion, moderated by Forbes India Editor Sourav Majumdar, included Amitabh Kant, CEO, Niti Aayog; Anil Swarup, coal secretary; Shaktikanta Das, economic affairs secretary; Analjit Singh, founder and chairman emeritus, Max Group; Ajay Singh, chairman, SpiceJet; Ajay Shriram, chairman, DCM Shriram; and Zarin Daruwala, CEO, Standard Chartered Bank in India. They articulated the deep-rooted changes necessary in crucial sectors that can result in a higher growth rate.
Ajay Singh: When these changes [in 1991] were brought about, we were in college and hadn’t seen much of the old India as some of my other colleagues did. In 1990, we had only one airline, Air India; only one television channel, Doordarshan; only one telecom company, BSNL; and that’s the way life was. One would spend as much as Rs 16,000 for a one-way ticket from Delhi to Bengaluru. Clearly, things changed dramatically once private airlines were allowed to start services. Jet Airways, Damania Airways, and a bunch of other airlines started services [in the country]. Some were good, some not so good while some died along the way. But the aviation landscape in this country changed forever. The same air ticket which cost Rs 16,000 in 1990, costs Rs 4,000 on an average today.
I see positive changes at the top layers of bureaucracy, but these need to permeate much faster. If only 12 states of India grew at a rate of 12 percent or higher, India will achieve its 10 percent growth target. Bureaucracy has the chance to become the key catalyst of change for India, and it will not get this opportunity again. Therefore, we must go all out for radical reforms.
Swarup: There is this fear of the ‘four Cs’. The CBI [Central Bureau of Investigation], CVC [Central Vigilance Commission], CAG [Comptroller and Auditor General] and the courts. Every time a bureaucrat takes a decision, there is a lurking fear in the back of his mind that there may be some adverse fallout that he will have to face. The industry should stand by honest bureaucrats and publicly support them. It is high time that each one of us has the courage to protect an honest and efficient person, if it is needed.
Majumdar: How is India doing in terms of fostering an enabling environment for the development of new-age entrepreneurship?
Kant: There is a unique ecosystem that is being put in place. Young Indian entrepreneurs like those who run Flipkart and Snapdeal are taking on global giants like Amazon. Across the board, the startup movement is spreading from the digital world to manufacturing, agriculture and social sectors. I think the challenge really is to make it spread from tier I metros to tier II and III cities. This requires creation of an entire ecosystem and the Start-up India action plan is taking care of that. We are enabling startups to register their companies in a single day through a mobile app, and we are allowing for easy exits because some startups may fail.
More importantly, we need to restructure our education system. And that is what we are trying to do by providing tinkering labs, 3D computers, and robots in colleges so that it leads to the creation of several small incubation centres.
This is just the beginning of a big revolution. India’s ecommerce sector is currently valued at $16 billion. By 2020, this would have crossed $100 billion and by 2025, it will be close to $400 billion. To my mind, the traditional, physical structures that sectors like banking and retail relied upon will give way to digital setups.
(This story appears in the 29 April, 2016 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)