Parekh hopes new govt will push reforms

‘There is sufficient reason to believe that India is on a much stronger footing’

Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Assocham President Rana Kapoor (left), present SKOCH Challenger Awards to HDFC Chairman Deepak Parekh (right) in New Delhi on Saturday.

Pinning hopes on the new government, HDFC Chairman Deepak Parekh, on Saturday, exuded confidence that the economic scenario would improve after elections, and the pace of reforms would pick up.

“Irrespective of who forms the government, the economic agenda will remain the same. One only hopes that the pace of reforms may be faster...,” he said at an event here.

A higher rate of growth will also depend on the broader set of reforms such as judicial, electoral, labour and police, he added.

Many key financial reforms, including the Insurance Bill and the DTC Bill, could not be passed during the UPA-II government because of political reasons.

“We need better education, we need better governance and we need better growth, and I remain confident that we will get better on all these three parameters and the faster we get, better it is for us,” he said.

Talking about growth, Mr. Parekh said there was sufficient reason to believe that India was on a much stronger footing today than it was 6-8 months ago.

Current scenario

“If one looks at the current scenario and the growth trajectory, I personally feel that the worst is behind us,” he said.

There is a need to shed the pessimistic view about Indian economy as it retained huge potential for growth, he said.

“In the current environment, we run the risk of becoming perennial pessimists. As we consume ourselves with this negativity, there is tendency to forget what our inherent strengths are,” he said. Noting that domestic investors are more pessimist, Mr. Parekh said: “Right now we need believers in the Indian story, we need hope that things will turn around for the better and we need to have conviction that this will happen.”

There had been huge disappointment in the performance of the Indian economy and much of India’s problems had been self inflicted, he said.

“Based on macro-fundamentals today, I feel India is far less fragile than several other emerging markets,” he said. Talking out the broken morale of bureaucracy, he said there was urgent need to re-instil confidence in the system.