More questions, fewer answers

WEF's India summit failed to outline an action plan

The World Economic Forum’s (WEF’s) country-specific events are designed to showcase a nation’s business prospects to the world. This year’s India Economic Summit, which concluded on Monday, was even more important since it was held for the first time in India’s financial capital. It was, therefore, surprising that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his top economic team, who had earlier used WEF events to showcase the country’s prospects to foreign investors, decided to give the event a miss. As if on cue, the number of top global executives attending the event could also be counted almost on one hand. It is debatable whether their presence would have made the summit more fruitful, but what is certain is that the delegates who braved the infamous Mumbai traffic to attend the two-and-a-half day event would have felt more reassured on the return about the time they had spent.

The inwardness of the discussions that largely ignored India’s place in the world economy is understandable, but in the end what everyone was left with were more questions than answers about some of the important issues the country is grappling with. India Inc raised the by-now-familiar worries over lack of governance. There was some excitement as Mr Mukesh Ambani, who was so far silent on the issue, joined the chorus. But if anyone wanted an answer to his angst, it wasn’t coming, since the people who are supposed to govern immediately retorted that the bigger challenge was to manage the diversity in our country rather than satisfy the “fast movers”. The other oft-repeated issue was how to leverage the advantage of India’s “incredibly young” population. While speakers referred to the fact that India was adding consumption power in the hands of 11 million additional people every year as they got into the working-age group, there was no clarity on how to harness that potential. Data provided by Rajiv Khandelwal, the WEF’s social entrepreneur for 2010, were disturbing — for example, the average age of retirement in the unorganised sector, which employs 40 million people, is just 28 years because the nature of work is often tough and unskilled. Speakers also talked about how a growing young population becomes an asset only when it has the skills to become an economically productive segment of society. Otherwise, its ends up being an economic burden. The point is all this has been heard before; nobody at the summit seemed to be in a position to offer a blueprint for the road ahead.

Going beyond the flash bulbs, however, the so-called smaller sessions had much better takeaways. For example, Chengal Reddy, co-chairman of the Indian Farmers and Industry Alliance, said farmers never wanted subsidies on water, electricity and fertilisers. Instead, they wanted a level playing field with the West and the urban sector. To boost the fast-slipping share of agriculture in the gross domestic product, Mr Reddy sought faster clearance to genetically modified seeds and better access to markets. A solution was promptly delivered by Vivian Balakrishnan, Singapore’s minister for environment and water resources: price water in such a way that people understand instinctively that water is a precious commodity. Can India ever do it? The answer, predictably, was just silence. Detractors have often referred to WEF events as nothing but talk fests. Sadly, the Mumbai summit hasn’t been able to prove them wrong.