The Hindu Business Line : India could regain lost glory: Gurcharan Das

Chennai, Jan 17 Although the country still has a long way to go, she could find glory once again, according to Gurcharan Das, columnist and author of the book India Unbound. He was speaking at a recent seminar on the New Emerging India. The seminar was part of Samanvay 2008, the festival of the Department of Management Studies, IIT Madras.

Mr Das started off by describing the basic qualities of good CEOs. He stressed on how important it was to be humble, and at the same time determined and ambitious — a rare combination but one that could ensure success.

Growth factors

Among the factors that had contributed to the country’s recent growth included the increase in GDP growth, a slowdown in population growth, a rise in literacy levels, the rise of the middle-class and a decline in the poverty rate, besides rising investment and productivity levels. He projected that when the middle-class formed 50 per cent of the total population, the politico-economic situation of the country would reach a tipping point of sorts.

He pointed out that the story of growth in the country has been unique. While growth in the South-East Asian countries was based mainly on export, manufacturing and investment, India’s strength lay in strong domestic consumption and its service industry.

He explained that the world needed another big consuming economy and India could nicely slip into that role. A domestic-led model had obvious advantages including insulation from volatility in the global markets. However, according to some, India had skipped the industrial revolution and had jumped directly from the agricultural age to the information age.

There were many reasons for India’s success. One, was a list of globally competitive and competent companies including Reliance, Ranbaxy, Infosys, Tata Motors, Bharti and ICICI among others. These were companies that ‘other countries would die for.’

Also, the vibrant private sector space had seen bad loans decline to less than even two per cent, while in China it was around 20 per cent.

Also, he said, not enough money was being ploughed into infrastructure development.