Both the editorial "Raise competitiveness" and Debashis Basu's column "Make in India: Beyond the slogan" (Irrational Choice, December 15) argued for competitiveness of India Inc. But the editorial supported the Reserve Bank of India Governor's theme of "Make in India", whereas Basu felt both the themes - "Make in India" and "Make for India" - are only slogans and a lot needs to be done to make India's business environment more competitive.
The column gave an impression that the writer was rather forthright in his views that may be difficult to accept prima facie for policymakers. The writer cited three core issues that can be addressed only in the long term. But in the long term, as Keynes put it, "we all are dead". Even the third point, "cost of capital" or "cost of borrowing" cannot be brought down in the short term. This is mainly because our public sector lenders, who control about 73 per cent of deposits and loans, have become high-cost islands. In fact, right now, the Indian Banks' Association is sitting to finalise a pay revision. The revision only implies a huge increase and has never been facing downward, irrespective of the "inflation-coming-down" good news phenomenon.
As Basu has written, apart from the points mentioned in the column, much more needs to be done to make India Inc competitive. There is, however, one caveat. India Inc should also come forward to offer practical solutions to issues that are seemingly difficult to solve currently, but can be solved in the near future. The government-India Inc partnership should, therefore, prioritise the list of issues and tackle them.
K V Rao Bengaluru
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