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Well met: Mr N. R. Narayana Murthy, Chief Mentor, Infosys, and Mr N. Vaghul, Chairman, ICICI Bank, at the launch of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab’s operations in India, in Chennai on Friday. —Bijoy Ghosh

Our Bureau

Chennai, July 13 “Why should we (the industry) worry about things that are not in our control? We need to worry about matters we can control such as how to become more relevant to the customer and improving work efficiency,” Mr N.R. Narayana Murthy, Founder, Chairman of the board and Chief Mentor, Infosys, told press persons in response to whether the strong rupee meant the IT, ITES, BPO industry would have to reconcile to lower margins in future.

Instead of worrying over currency movement companies needed to improve their efficiency by reducing administrative red tape and adding more value to clients, he said. When asked if the industry should seek any Government intervention such as sops or other favourable measures to reduce the impact of the rising rupee value against the dollar, Mr Murthy said he was personally never in favour of any sops or concessions from the Government.

Earlier today he addressed a gathering from the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and the Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR) on ways to eradicate poverty.

Income is the least of worries for poor people. They want opportunities for their children to participate in economic progress, Mr Murthy said quoting a World Bank report.

India has about 300 million unemployed youth and if a third of them could earn about $600 (about Rs 25,000) a year, it would result in about $60 billion being added each year to the country’s GDP, he said. He stressed the Government and industry to jointly create opportunities to employ such youth.

J-PAL and IFMR have set up centre at IFMR funded by a grant from the Mulago Foundation. The Centre will work to improve the effectiveness of poverty alleviation programmes by providing policy makers with scientific results to help shape relevant policies.

J-PAL has been working with NGOs and the Indian Government for a decade

It is currently involved in the ‘Balsakhi’ programme that provides remedial education to children lagging behind in school.

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