Mumbai, Feb 22 : Pitching for disinvestment in public sector behemoths such as LIC, Air
India and BSNL, top industry leader Deepak Parekh has said it can unlock
huge funds worth “lakhs of crores of rupees” and shares should be given
to retail investors without depending on the overseas entities.
However, one of the major requirements for such large-scale
disinvestments is a Government thinking on those lines, as lack of
political will and union pressure have been halting such proposals for a
long time, including during the tenure of the previous UPA government,
he said.
Giving examples from during the UPA regime, Parekh said he has been part
of many important government panels, including those on BSNL and Indian
Railways, but nothing moved on the suggestions made by those
committees.
”...if you run down a company to that level in the public sector that no
private sector entity will want to take it, then what will you do?” he
wondered.
Parekh also hoped the first full Budget of the Narendra Modi Government
will focus on reforms without much populism and pitched for incentives
for companies to launch new projects and give a boost to the ‘Make in
India’ campaign.
He said the Government’s finances are in a much better position to go
ahead with reforms, following steps like reduction in subsidy and
checking of wastages and leakages, but it would have to remain within
its means.
While echoing Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s assertion that reforms can
happen throughout the year, rather than being only on Budget day,
Parekh said the BJP’s defeat in Delhi elections was unlikely to result
into any kind of populist measures at the cost of reforms.
He also flagged a continuing fear among bureaucrats of being hauled up
as a major reason for inordinate delays in the decision-making process,
saying things can change for the better if they are assured of
protection.
Parekh, a leading industry voice who has always been frank with his
views on the issues faced by the companies and investors from India and
abroad, said the Prime Minister has been time and again assuring the
bureaucrats that they should not worry and “act without fear or favour”.
“This is the right thing to do (assuring the bureaucrats), but seeing
what has happened to some of their ex-colleagues, bureaucrats are still
not 100 per cent sure that if they take a call and it goes wrong, will
they be investigated or will they be treated like they made money or it
was vested interest and all that,” he said.
Parekh, Chairman of financial services player HDFC, made these remarks
in an extensive interview to PTI, wherein he had also talked about steps
that are required to improve ease of doing business in the country and
to convert prevailing optimism into investments on the ground.
Parekh said a lot of decisions have been taken by the Modi Government,
“but it is the process... Fast-tracking these processes will ensure
improvement on the ease of doing business front“.
He rejected the perception that the Prime Minister was controlling everything and this was delaying the processes
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