Mr. Suhel
Seth |
CEO, Counselage |
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Good
afternoon ladies and gentlemen I don’t know why we normally
get chosen for what is known as the graveyard hour for speaking.
Post lunch I don’t know if any of you are interested in
government or business. Having said that I think there is a
certain amount of hypocrisy which Indian business has laced
itself with for several years. We chose government intervention
when it serves our purpose; we ignore government intervention
when it doesn’t serve our purpose. Narain Murthy hates
the government for intervening in IT but Narain needs the government
in order for Lufthansa to fly out of Bangalore, that’s
a reality, is it, a good thing or bad thing I am not willing
to comment. The tragedy is that you cannot choose your bed fellows
depending on levels of convenience. Can government help India
and Indian industry, of course it can. How? There is a very
important organisation called the India brand equity foundation
which was started by the government in partnership with the
CII which has been doing reasonably ---work, more such public
private initiatives need to happen and if they do we will see
the government being an effective catalyst . We need to open
government to understand what branding of brand India ----,
how do you position India as an economic investment destination,
how do you create vibrancy in the ---and embassies you have
all over the world. How do you make your ambassadors and high
commissioners great economic statesmen rather than just carriers
of foreign policy notes between countries? If we are able to
energise government in that respect then government has a tremendous
role. For far too long many of us have constantly been in ----people
and talking against the role of government with against government
intervention. Government does play a critical role as far a
country to country dialogue is concerned there is no question
about it. The government can also play sometimes a positive
role although I am not in agreement with the role that the government
played with Lakshmi Mittal. I don’t think we had any business
to support one man’s hostile bid of a steel company when
that same man on Feb 24th 2005 in an interview to a financial
times said and I quote, there is nothing Indian about me. But
the government well all over trying to promote and support these
bids, there needs to be better communication and organization
in terms of what we seek from government, that hasn’t
happened. Bodies like the CII have done tremendous work in identifying
what needs to be done. The charter of concerns as it were has
been tabled, do I see a future, and I think there is a tremendous
future. It is not about whether government should be in business
or not in our country as long as we are the functioning ----democracy
that we will be there will always be a role for government and
government will have silent -----, they will influence you in
manners that you and I don’t know. And it will range from
airport privatization to the allocations of SSCs. So that’s
gone happened, lets not ---that away. The trick would be to
leverage the potential that the government wheels because of
the stake machinery it has at its command. For the last several
months there has been enormous talk and in fact it has only
accentuated in the last several months about the rural ------.
I said that at a CI function about 2 weeks ago, I don’t
believe there is anything called a rural consumer. It’s
a myth and at times it is a statement to attract empathy or
sympathy, there is a consumer in the rural market but to call
him a rural consumer and to say that you are doing him a favour
by getting into the market is silly. You are going to the market
because you need to add to your consumer base. Government can
play a very critical role in expanding the pie for many product
categories. In even simple things like releasing spectrum for
telecom companies, that’s where government can play a
tremendous role. Government to my mind can play a tremendous
role by ensuring that they create the least barriers of resistance
in any kind of economic march to a certain level of progress.
Finally I think government can play a tremendous role if the
level of distrust of business is watered down, we’ve moved
far away from those beliefs that profit is a dirty word. I think
if this partnership is engendered both government and business
will work. After all whose government is it? Thank you. |
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