Modi-India Inc Meet: PM Asks Billionaires To ‘Invest’ More; Outlines Steps To Be Taken Towards Facilitating Startups

Seeing a major opportunity for India in the global economic turmoil, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked the Indian industry to show “greater appetite” for risk taking and to invest more.

He made this call at a meeting of the industry and business leaders, bankers and economists at his residence to brainstorm over how to convert the global turmoil into an opportunity for India.

Marquee names who attended the meeting are Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, Tata Group head Cyrus Mistry, Aditya Birla Group head Kumar Mangalam Birla, Bharti Airtel chief Sunil Bharti Mittal and ITC chief Y C Deveshwar.

RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar and SBI Chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya and economists like Subir Gokaran and Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian as well as Niti Aayog vice chairman Arvind Panagariya were also present in the meeting.

One clear takeaway from the meeting was to focus on agriculture, food processing and creation of infrastructure that would fortify the domestic economy against the current global turmoil and in fact help the country benefit from it.

Prime Minister tweeted the meeting as “productive” saying, “We had insightful and constructive discussions on economic issues.”

He outlined the steps taken by his government towards facilitating startups, boosting skill development and MUDRA bank.

According to a statement on Modi’s Twitter post, participants at the meeting emphasized that India was seen as the bright spot in the global economy and highlighted importance of focusing on infrastructure, job creation and improving ease of doing business.

They stressed on the need to create a viable ecosystem for startups and self employment to flourish.

Narendra Modi said that since India Inc regards the present scenario as a great opportunity for India, it is for India’s private sectors also to increase their own investments. The Prime Minister urged the captains of industry to take the lead in setting up “innovation and skill hubs” which could boost startups in their respective sectors of business.

He added, “Conventionally, compared to others, the private sector has greater risk taking ability because their entrepreneurship emanates out of risk taking.”

The government also discussed about its recent initiatives like Make in India, Digital India, Jan Dhan Yojana and Direct Benefit Transfers in the meeting. It highlighted sector on specific subjects like in areas of agriculture, agri infrastructure, food processing, pharmaceuticals and renewable energy.

He identified agriculture, ocean economy and space as important areas with huge economic potential for India. Prime Minister laid thrust on low cost manufacturing and felt the strength of economy lies in its huge human resource, size of domestic market and that it is not entire export dependent.

The participants underlined the need of current global environment to ensure long term energy security through suitable policy interventions.

Overall, the conclusion of the meeting was that the current situation is a major opportunity for India, which should be seized.

Appreciating the constructive atmosphere and enthusiasm among the delegates, Prime Minister said that the brainstorming session was the first such interaction. It was an occasion to deliberate on roadmap in the present situation.

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