Discussions on foreign investment in retail should focus on the agriculturists who will benefit from opening up the market, said Mr N. Vittal, Former Central Vigilance Commissioner. At a seminar on ‘Twenty Years of India's Liberalisation', Mr Vittal said: “The focus should be on the benefits that 60 crore agriculturists would derive from retail FDI. Instead, 5 crore trade-wallahs got all the attention and the whole issue was sabotaged. Public opinion should have been generated while discussing the issue.”
The Centre has put on hold its decision on allowing 51 per cent FDI in multi-brand retail following pressure from various quarters.
Gains from liberalisation
Commenting on the benefits of liberalising the economy in 1991, Mr Vittal said this rescued the country from the licence raj and helped India achieve success in the IT, automobiles and telecom sectors. “Today, we have leading global car brands in the country. India's call rates are the cheapest in the world.”
Liberalisation has also helped the country improve its forex reserves, from around $2 billion in 1991 to $300 billion today. However, income-tax and Customs laws stand in the way.
The retired IAS officer took a dig at the freebie culture in Tamil Nadu. “If economy has to progress, wealth has to be created. Not distributed.”
Dr N. Ravichandran, CEO, Lucas-TVS, said, before liberalisation, India was not considered a nation connected with trade. Liberalisation and rapid advances in technology have brought about a turnaround in the way the country is viewed.
Asymmetric growth
In his keynote address, Mr C. Ramachandran, Former Secretary, Ministry of Finance, Government of India, said that although there has been wealth creation in the last 20 years, poverty has not been eliminated.
“Economic growth does not in itself lead to the country's development,” he said, referring to the “asymmetric growth” across different sections of society.
According to Mr Manickam Ramaswami, Chairman and Managing Director, Loyal Textiles, the proposed manufacturing policy must address issues of power shortage, cost of logistics and prices of raw materials.
The seminar was jointly organised by the Institute of Financial Management and Research (Chennai), PSG Institute of Management (Coimbatore) and Xavier Institute of Management and Entrepreneurship (Bangalore).