Comments
Despite a bleak economic outlook, corporate India feels that India can achieve the seven per cent GDP growth.
Talking to reporters on the sidelines of “Corporate Culture and Spirituality in India,” organised by the Art of Living Foundation, K.V. Kamath, Chairman of Infosys, said that growth will come back and urged the Government to tackle infrastructure bottlenecks such as delay in clearances which are causing hindrances to the country’s development.
The Central Statistical Office on Thursday in an estimate said that the GDP growth for 2012-13 will be five per cent, which industry watchers point out is the worst in a decade.
In the last 18 months, the Environment Ministry has given in-principle approval to 754 projects involving 18,204 hectares of land and rejected 74 proposals, seeking diversion of 1,554 hectares of forest land, according to Government data.
When asked whether drastic steps would be taken to address these issues, CEOs were of the opinion that the Finance Minister is taking the right steps.
“I do not comment on the Budget but with the Finance Minister’s track record, we expect the right decisions to be taken to get growth back on track,” said Kamath.
On a cautionary note he added that the global economy is growing at one per cent and sectors in India like manufacturing, services, rural economy can grow faster than the existing growth.
Kishore Biyani, Founder and Group CEO of Future Group said that the Budget should look at curbing high costs associated with growth and look at policies that will enable Indian companies to increase scale.
An IMF report pointed out that India was paying the price for failing to ensure infrastructure investment, which did not keep pace with GDP growth.
“If basic infrastructure is not in place, there is no question of any meaningful growth,” said a CEO at the sidelines.
venkatesh.ganesh@thehindu.co.in
Comments
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.