India has resources and ideas but now there is need to focus on productivity and implementation, said Dr. Subir Gokarn, Director of Research, Brooking India, and Senor Fellow, Brooking Institutions, while addressing the session on Ideas that could change the Indian Economy at the National Conference and Annual Session 2015 of Confederation of Indian Industry in New Delhi. Dr. Gokarn said that in the infrastructure sector, the PPP model had not worked as per expectations in past few years and now there was a need for FPTP i.e. first public and then private. He highlighted the importance of accessing sources of funds such as private equity and venture capital in order to finance the infrastructure sector. Referring to the 14th Finance Commission, Dr. Gokarn pointed out that since states now had more funds being allocated by the Centre, it was time that states increased their focus on implementation and providing services which earlier the Centre was doing. Highlighting the importance of learning by sharing, Dr. Gokarn said there should be knowledge and experience sharing amongst states which would help them to successfully implement various schemes by learning from the best practices being followed by other states.

Dr. Ajit Ranade, Senior President and Chief Economist, Aditya Birla Group, said despite having high saving rates, the flow through the financial system was limited. As a result, large part of the savings did not come into the financial system which needed to be addressed. He focused on some innovative models like Gold Demat scheme which could improve the percentage of savings being converted into investments. He further mentioned that small businesses were badly affected by excessive paperwork. There should be more enforcement raj and less inspector raj. Dr. Ranade highlighted that the ratio of road and rail usage for logistics purpose in India was 70:30 which needed to be reversed to be save logistics cost and increase competitiveness worldwide. While highlighting the role of cooperatives, he said there was a need for shareholders capitalism in agriculture sector.

Further, he focused on the need to save electricity wastage and identify ways to capitalise on the digital world, which was going to be one of the exciting areas in times to come.
R. Seshasayee, Executive Vice Chairman, Hinduja Group, said India was amongst the highest savers in the world but there was a problem of transmission because of which only a limited part of savings got converted into investment and capital formation. He focused on the importance of converting ideas into actual implementation while saying that ideas were there but there was a need for skills and implementation. He mentioned that India needed to improve incremental capital output ratio for better GDP growth. Productivity of capital assets had stagnated or come down in some sectors like power.


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