‘Prahaladian approach needed for reforms'

There is a need to ensure that India's half-finished economic reforms do not turn out to be half-baked.

Freeing markets for products is not sufficient, and the reforms needed with regard to land, power, labour and capital will need a ‘Prahaladian' (Prof C.K. Prahalad's ideas) approach, according to West Bengal Governor, Mr M.K. Narayanan.

“India's democratic and demographic dividend of elected accountability and a large young population, which constitutes over 60 per cent of India's 1.2 billion, as being our USP against countries like China, may not come true. There is a need for more reforms and a battle of ideas to be won,” he said.

Innovative steps will require to be taken by policy makers to reduce inflation and the prices of essential commodities, as also strengthening agriculture and manufacturing, he said while inaugurating the Prof C.K. Prahalad Centre for Emerging India, India's first research and innovation centre for the Bottom of the Pyramid market, launched at the Loyola Institute of Business Administration.

Policy makers and strategic thinkers had always recognised that emergent India was basically an India in transition. The current turmoil cannot, however, be treated as evanescent since fairly serious warning had been forthcoming from the responsible quarters.

Last year, the World Economic Forum had hoisted a cautionary signal saying “India's leaders are dazzled by immediate gains that failed to implement much needed domestic reforms. In such a situation, economic success becomes unsustainable, and domestic, social and demographic pressures soon trigger an economic reversal.”

The recent events appear to have put a break on ‘our . Somewhere during the past 12 months, “we appear to have come up short vis-à-vis such hopes,” he said.

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