‘Paranoia, a good thing: FICCI president
Rajeev Chandrasekhar, member of parliament and now president of FICCI, outlines his vision for the Indian industry
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Rajeev Chandrasekhar has decided to don two hats at a time this year. The new president of FICCI, who is chairman of Jupiter Capital and also member of Parliament, has taken upon himself the task of improving the image of corporate India, as also to influence the polity in the election year by suggesting a minimum common economic agenda to be included in the election manifesto of various parties. Speaking to media persons in New Delhi in his first interaction as the industry body’s president, he gave the reason for his taking over as FICCI president while being a member of Parliament, thus, “I wanted to spend time to ensure that they (industry) are seen as they ought to be seen. I want to position business as contributors to economy.”
He said the perception that all that business does with government is mainly work on sops for themselves and that industry organisations spend a lot of time lobbying for them is unfortunate. “FICCI and I believe strongly that business and industry, be it large and small, must be seen as participants and contributors to our nation building efforts and not as simply talking about in sophisticated seminars or European destinations but rather as taking on and addressing the real issues of governance today – issues like strengthening our institutions like regulators, Competition Commission, Pushing for a more plural and inclusive growth model, ensuring that the government programmes deliver better, Push for more competition and efficiency and avoid monopolistic or cartelisation temptations.”
In his address, he was all praise for young entrepreneurs. He said, “ I am a strong believer that Indian industry has reached an inflection point and as a country we have evolved from an economy that was dominated by a few private and some public enterprises to a more vibrant one where today’s business leaders may not be tomorrow’s and there are challenges and opportunities at every turn. The entrepreneurs and companies that recognise the opportunities and meet the challenges are the ones that will remain relevant and successful in the future. So firstly FICCI wants to be seen as and aligned with and encourage the entrepreneurs of the future and so we are inviting the brightest and youngest from amongst today’s entrepreneurs to join FICCI. A number of young Indian business and professionals have been invited and are already joining FICCI.”
Admitting there are political hurdles to economic growth, he said FICCI under him will try to impact polity too. “One of the key things in this election year is for us to try and establish a minimum economic agenda for political parties. It is our hope that we can try to ensure that the leading political parties can include in their manifestoes a minimum common agenda around the core issues of improving efficiencies in the economy, improve our institutional framework, improve government spending on programmes. Therefore FICCI is launching a ‘Politics and Governance’ series of seminars and discussions where we hope to bring business, politics and media together to work out systematically what can be a minimum economic agreement across a majority of our polity.” Responding to a question as to why the politicians will listen, he said there’s the realisation in most political parties, barring a few, that growth is fundamental to poverty eradication.
When asked whether US recession is a cause for worry in India too, he said, “I am not a soothsayer. But there’s no harm in Indian economy getting paranoid and tightening up... Only the paranoid survive. Paranoia is a good thing.”