The Hindu Business Line : Premji calls for land reforms, power sector revamp to transform India

Mr Azim H. Premji, Chairman, Wipro Ltd, flanked by Mr Hari Shankar Singhania (left), Chairman, JRD Tata Memorial Steering Committee, and Mr M.K. Sanghi, President, Assocham, at the JRD Tata Memorial Lecture 2005 in the Capital on Tuesday. - Ramesh Sharma

New Delhi , Aug. 30

THE Wipro Chairman, Mr Azim Premji, has suggested the adoption of a multi-pronged strategy comprising immediate initiation of land reforms, overhauling of the country's power sector, health and primary education, besides pushing forward interlinking of rivers to economically and socially transform India.

Delivering the JRD Tata Memorial Lecture here, organised by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India, Mr Premji also sought rationalisation in property taxes to boost economic activity in the housing and retail sectors, which would create immense employment opportunities.

"We need to overhaul our land related laws, taxation and information systems. It is estimated that 90 per cent of land in India is subject to legal disputes over ownership. Stamp duty ranges between 8 and 15 per cent of the property value, encouraging avoidance. Property tax rates are low and collection is inefficient. All this has led to Indian land prices being highest among the Asian nations relative to average incomes, and low tax collections is hampering our ability to maintain urban infrastructure," he said.

Power sector, Mr Premji said, was by far the biggest resource drain on the economy. Therefore, the Government needs to eliminate power thefts and improve efficiency of generation, distribution and transmission. These changes would have a major impact on the fiscal deficit of States, apart from bringing down the cost of doing business, he said.

The Wipro Chairman also stressed the need for executing innovative projects such as interlinking of rivers. "Less than 40 per cent of the cultivable land is under assured irrigation. The underground water table is declining at the rate of 5 per cent every year. In the medium term, water shortage will create a significant barrier to growth - whether agriculture, industry or urban infrastructure," said Mr Premji.

Primary education and healthcare is another neglected area which needs to be immediately addressed, he said, pointing out that out of 19.2 crore children in the age group of 6-14, four crore do not have access to primary education. He also said the Government needed to invest the education cess it has been collecting for the past two years in the education sector.

On software services in the country, Mr Premji said the salary differential among software professionals between the US and India was a great arbitrage opportunity on which the initial success of the industry was built. Similar opportunities have risen today in the BPO industry and in pharmaceutical and biotech research.

On the possibility of China overtaking India in the software sector, Mr Premji said India needed to build on the opportunity on which the initial success of the industry was built to be able to compete with China.

Mr Premji also said that since we produce more and more engineers, there is an increased bias towards technical orientation of services. More and more after sales services were becoming technical. He said, to ensure enough engineering talent pool in the country, we could learn from the Chinese who have increased their remuneration package for technical research scholars to prevent them from migrating to entrepreneurial activities.

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