Q: When did you first
meet NK and tell us about your interactions with him since then
I
call him NK Uncle, because ours is a multi-generational relationship. My father
Dhirubhai knew his father and when he entered services my father knew him as a
son of his friend. That relationship grew and when I came back from Stanford, I
was introduced to him as one of the brightest IAS officers overseeing how this
country works. That was my first interaction and I still remember that my first
impression was that IAS guys have style!
Since
then what really struck me in my consequent interactions was his curiosity. At
all times, he would always be more and more curious in terms of saying ‘what’s
happening in your generation?’, ‘what more can we do?’
I
have seen him in Commerce Ministry, Finance Ministry, PMO, even in the Home
Ministry, say, ‘now what can we do in terms of improving our border security or
internal security?’ The curiosity and his single-minded mindset in terms of
belief in the ability in Indians and
Q. Dhirubhai once in his office took out a postcard and asked me ‘if
every Indian could speak with each other at the cost of this postcard, where
will
As
you spoke about my father – he is mentioned in the book. I think that one of
the best pictures – the picture that I cherish the most – is part of the book.
And, again, just to recap, my father was a son of a schoolteacher who came to
the city of
If
you think about the book and think about what really has happened, we also
changed the mindsets of the ruling class, the mindsets of the bureaucracy to be
more empowering, to liberalize. And until the DEA licensing in 1990, we used to
struggle to create every 10,000; 20,000; 30,000 tons of polyester capacity. At
all times, there would be people like N K Singh would have high aspirations for
the country saying, ‘Why can't we beat the Taiwanese or ‘Why can't we beat the
Koreans’.
And
surely, we are now among the top two polyester producers in the world. Even
during the COVID crisis we could manufacture PPEs in the shortest possible
time. If you look at Telecom, our view was that at the end of the day, we've
got to embrace technologies of the future. And this was my father's view, he'd
always say ‘I don't want to be only a textile company. If you want to move from
textiles, you should move to businesses of the future and you should invest in
next generation talent.’ And that is what we've done. Even when we thought
through telecom together, the roadmap was very clear. The roadmap was to make
calling cheaper than the price of a postcard. Today it is free. And as we
migrate to the future, it will not only connect people but also billions of
things.
And
we have the concept of a digital society, which our Prime Minister unveiled a
couple of weeks ago in his AI conference, where he has given a vision for
As
we see the journey, the faster we embrace technology, the faster we adopt new
technologies and adopt the future industries, we will be better off. And I have
to congratulate the finance minister for her leadership and, in the last six
months, taking some of the most difficult second-generation reforms. We've
talked about second generation reforms, but I think that we have now been bold
enough to bring about reforms in Education, Healthcare, Employment, Labour and
Agriculture. I am sure that these reforms will lay the foundation for our
future growth.
Q How do you wish to be remembered as?
Well,
it’s more than what I wish to be remembered by. It’s not about me, it is about
what I can do to contribute to our society and I think, what I am working
towards is really three things as we said like the first is really
transformation of India into a digital society and that digital society
incorporates all the future industries, so that the next 30 years of India is a
100 times, like what we have never imagined is what we can achieve. That’s the
first piece that at least in my humble way of working to.
The
second coincidently combines with the magic that our respected Finance Minister
talked about and I think that linkages in education and its time to transform
our education sector at any point in time we have 200 million children in India
in the education system and it will take us 8 to 10 years to completely
transform the skill base of India and I think that you know what we have been
what our Finance Minister very aptly describe what is magic.
I
think that we have the formula to convert the magic into reality and establish
linkages between academic institutions to real world, skill training and
employment in a way that actually sustains
And
The third thing that we are working towards is really transformation of energy.
And we think again that the world is right and
If
I can play my small part in actually achieving this and create institutions
that will perpetuate and sustain that than I would have done my Job. I don’t
know whether I will succeed or not.
Q: Indian manufacturing has still not become globally competitive and
why is manufacturing growth slower than what we would like. What can be done?
We
just have to rethink and reinvent manufacturing, I would agree that some areas
– like if you take our own refining and petrochemicals, where we are the most
globally competitive – the opportunity for us is to embrace the future
industries, think in terms of ecosystems. Three specific things we can do for
leadership is to strengthen our small and medium sector. Just like we have
startups in technology sector, I think
If
we do that right, rather than worry about the past, we can think about the
future then the future is not going to be an extension of the past. We can
create our new destiny in terms of eco system, platforms and manufacturing
which then becomes a high employment generation piece and we then have a play
not only for our domestic market, but all the marginal pieces we can support to
the international market.