The Hindu Business Line : CII moots viability funding for social infrastructure

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) is in favour of viability funding for social infrastructure too, on the lines of the viability gap funding for creating physical infrastructure.

Mr R. Seshasayee, President, CII, made this point while elaborating on the role of the private sector in higher education. He pointed out that between 1930 and 1960, most of the institutions "which are today torchbearers in higher education" were all started by private initiative. Somewhere along the way, in the last 20-30 years, the environment for the private sector to invest in higher education was not there. "We need to pick that up again. We need to find a way to get private sector back into investment into higher education," he told Business Line.

But the institutions started by the private sector then were affordable to a large section of the population, whereas those that came up later were not so. Was there a mismatch? "You are putting up an important flag. The issue in education is about the type of faculty that you can get. If you have to get faculty at market prices, then the cost of education goes up, unless there is a subsidy. This is where the economic equation is not getting right," Mr Seshasayee said and elaborated on the need to "get private sector to come on the basis of viability funding."

He said that today a serious problem faced by industry, probably as important as infrastructure bottlenecks, was that pertaining to the availability of skilled people in sufficient numbers. There was a huge drop-out problem with nearly 90 per cent dropping out after primary education. This was a huge problem because the per capita value addition was phenomenally low.

"I get concerned when we glibly talk about what a young country we are going to be, that we have 60 per cent of the people below the age of 30, and that the other countries are ageing and that we are the only country having youth power," he said. "Yes, but if this youth power is not going to be productive or cannot add value, it is no longer a positive feature," he added.

Such a situation would only lead to negative thoughts and society would pay a high price for this. "We are taking law and order for granted. It is only when law and order disappears we know what a priceless input that is for business. We cannot afford that framework to be destroyed by ignoring to develop the youth of this country," he said.

On reservation, the CII President said there appeared to be a disconnect between the language used by the industry and the political leadership. Industry was talking about economically backward whereas the political leadership wanted to know what industry would do for the socially backward. "It is likely that they completely overlap. But, until we have proved that actually when we try and reach out to the economically backward we also reach out to the socially backward, we have not completed the answer," Mr Seshasayee said. "That is why we need to get the right connect between what the political agenda is and what industry initiative is," he added.