Lauding the private sector’s role in driving India’s economic growth, country’s top industrialist Mr Mukesh Ambani on Sunday urged the government to move faster in its decision making and put to rest any notion about policy paralysis due to political constraints.
He also called for a dramatic shift in the governance model for better partnership between the government and the private sector in delivering more value to each other, and the society at large.
Speaking at the opening session of the annual Indian Chapter of the World Economic Forum (WEF) here, Mr Ambani said the corporate sector wants both the central and state governments to “align and move a lot faster”, remove the mismatch prevailing in their approaches, and speed up the decision making process.
He said the private industry has now become a driver, from a facilitator, of India’s economic growth.
“I think there is a mismatch. We are both heading to the same direction and sometimes, like you have seen in the US and Europe, that’s the price of democracy, but we shouldn’t put a thing by saying that because the institutions of democracy are there, we will be paralysed.
“And because there is an opposition and a party in power, we would do nothing. That’s what worries me,” he said, while urging for a minimum agreement to deliver on the expectations of the people.
Mr Ambani, head of India’s largest corporate entity Reliance Industries and the country’s richest person, also acknowledged that the government was taking steps in that direction.
Paralysis in policy decisions and government inaction on important economic issues has been a matter of debate in the recent past, with many industry leaders seeking urgent steps from policy-makers to tackle the problem.