New Delhi, August 11
Eminent journalist and Business Standard chairman TN Ninan today said rapid economic growth was vital for India to reduce poverty, improve health and education standards, boost national security and ensure a social safety net for all.

Delivering the 19th Prem Bhatia Memorial Lecture here today on ‘Reviving India's Economy’, Ninan emphasised on rapid economic growth and reforms in the four factors of production — land, labour, capital, and entrepreneurship. He also suggested that the Prime Minister should reinvent the government and persuade the Chief Ministers to do the same.

"Agencies in charge of implementing field programmes should be carved out of the government and converted into service organisations headed by CEOs. The government should give them specific jobs, with targets — like running schools and achieving a minimum pass percentage, or meeting public health targets. The failure should mean the CEO gets changed, or the agency loses the contract," Ninan suggested.

The lecture was held on the occasion of the presentation of the Prem Bhatia Awards for excellence in political and environmental journalism. This year, the awards were presented to Smita Gupta of The Hindu and Nitin Sethi of the Business Standard.

Calling for more reforms in the factors of production, Ninan said the Land Acquisition Act passed last year had overshot in terms of corrective action, and had the potential to do lasting damage — just as changes in labour laws more than 30 years ago caused India to miss the manufacturing bus.

"The land acquisition law needs to be changed again, not because farmers don't have the right to a proper price, but because there is also such a thing as too high a price, and windfall gain", Ninan said.

He called for more flexible labour laws to encourage manufacturing activity and create more jobs, and get India going.

The third factor of production that needed to be freed was capital, Ninan said. He added that in India's case most of the subsidies did not go to the poor. "It should be possible, therefore, to cut the subsidy Bill without affecting the poor, and then to invest more in roads, railway lines and other essential infrastructure. That too will help get India going again", Ninan added.

On entrepreneurship, Ninan said the scams involving iron ore, coal and spectrum all had to do with the wrong kinds of capitalism and these played a role in pushing India off the rails. He suggested the government to make the anti-defection law more stringent to reduce the dependence of governments on fringe parties. He also suggested making the civil services independent of the ministerial whim.

Thirdly, Ninan said the Prime Minister must reinvent the government and persuade the Chief Ministers to do the same. To further the argument, he cited examples like outsourcing some of the work involved in issuing passports and building and running of airports, and said this process should be taken much further.

“The railways should be made and run like a corporation. Why shouldn't postal work, which is done poorly, be handed out to a service agency? The strictly civilian government will then become a much smaller organisation, shrinking from three million people to much less than a million and it would be devoted essentially to policy-making and monitoring progress on various fronts,” Ninan added.