• Investment World
• eWorld
• Brand Line
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest
• The New Manager

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Cross Currency

• Rates
  
  

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources
• In Focus
• In Depth

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• The Hindu ePaper
• Business Line
• Business Line ePaper
• Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

Vinay Kamath

Gurcharan Das on the private sector

It's encouraging that the government is allocating funds for public-private partnerships, says Das.

You said China will age faster than India and India will benefit from the demographic dividend. But isn't there a mismatch between the jobs coming into the country and the training people have?

Even that, I don't worry about so much. The good news is the money the government is allocating for the public-private partnerships. I personally think that while it will be good for governments to succeed, the private sector is very cleverly making up the gap.

To give you an example, the IT companies need a massive number of people and are hiring. They started with the IITs, IIMs, then they went to the second and third-tier schools, smaller places — they hire them and within three to six months, are able to lift them. The raw material is there, so the training schools of the private sector, especially of Infosys in Mysore, similarly of other IT majors such as Wipro, TCS, train them not just in IT skills but also in soft skills... I personally think the private sector will fill the gap.

So, demand creates its own supply and I am amazed how much the private sector is doing to make up the deficit.

Do you see Indian brands coming to the forefront, any able to hold their own?

They are holding on. I think you can see in so many areas that we thought that Indian brands would collapse in the face of competition. Look at automobiles. Who would imagine that Tatas' Indica and Indigo could compete with world players? Or, in telecom, everybody said foreign players would wipe them out, but today it is Bharti that is the leader. I personally think that the swadeshi people have gone quiet because of the performance.

More Stories on : Interview | Economy | Management

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
"The clear lesson is the need to diversify"

Copyright © 2007, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line