In the midst of a raging debate over allowing multinationals in the retail sector, Infosys mentor N R Narayana Murthy on Saturday favoured MNCs in the sector saying consumers will benefit from their entry.
He felt if Congress had a majority at the government at the Centre it would have moved economic reforms on a much faster pace.
"When we have opened it (retail sector) to large Indian groups, which means that the mom and pop stores are likely to suffer anyway, why not open it to large multinationals," Murthy told Karan Thapar on Devil's Advocate programme on CNN-IBN.
When asked if he believes foreign direct investment should be permitted in the Indian retail sector, he said, "Absolutely."
Murthy said MNCs would bring best technology and practices and at the end of the day, the consumer benefits.
He made a specific exception of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh when he talked about "a serious crisis in the Indian leadership at many levels" and said "the very fragile coalition the prime minister leads was holding him back." "I personally think we have one such leader with the vision, political capacity and courage to force through the change in Dr Manmohan Singh (but) unfortunately he leads a very fragile coalition, if he were to lead a majority Congress party government I have no doubt at all he would have moved much much faster than he has been able to."
The Infosys mentor has advocated privatisation of country's public sector including the Navratnas.
"The Navratnas would perform better if they are in private sector hands or if they operate as if they are in the private sector. I do not believe the government should be in business," he said.
The infrastructure creation should also be built by the private sector, he said, adding even the education and health sector should be opened to them.
"Infrastructure should be built by the private sector. The government should create policies that encourage them to create infrastructure such as roads, power, airports among others," Murthy said.
Advocating capitalism as a way to tackle country's problem of poverty and unemployment, he said, "we have a large number of illiterate and semi-literate people. To meaningfully employ such people, they have to be moved into low-tech manufacturing."
He said China has been able to create over 140 million jobs in the last 11 years by moving people from agriculture and rural areas to low-tech manufacturing.
Capitalism is about providing equal opportunity for everybody and it is the responsibility of the government to create an environment where there is incentive for more entrepreneurs to create a large number of jobs.
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