| India Eco Summit: Q&A with Tarun Das | |
| 'The summit put India on the radar of global business' | | A K Bhattacharya / New Delhi November 8, 2009, 0:17 IST | |
.jpg "Tarun Das") Tarun Das, who stepped down as chief mentor of the Confederation of Indian Industry early this week, has been associated with the holding of the annual India Economic Summit since the launch of its first edition in 1985. Das reflects on the highs and lows of the Summit in an interview with A K Bhattacharya. Edited excerpts:
How did the idea of the India Economic Summit take shape?
Rahul Bajaj of Bajaj Auto and N. Kalyani of Bharat Forge were regular visitors to the annual meetings of the Forum. They played a major role in getting it to come to India. Klaus Schwab of the Forum agreed to the suggestion. Those days the world did not have much interest in India, which was pretty closed as far as its economic policies were concerned. The need for a meeting on India was also sparked by global players’ desire to know a little more about India.
What would you rate as the most important achievement of the Summit?
The most important achievement was to have built a channel of communication between India and the world. India as an economic entity needed to be on the radar of the global business community. The summit managed to achieve that.
What would you consider the high point of the Summit?
The high point was achieved when top decision makers began coming for the Summit. In the earlier years, only middle managers from foreign multinationals would be sent with a clear brief to get a sense of what was really happening in India. There was no serious interest in India. But in the last few years top CEOs are taking part. The co-chairs of the summit are mostly top names in international business. This is linked to the Indian economy’s growth also.
Was there a low point also?
Yes. We were pretty disillusioned during the late 1980s till the economic reforms process was firmly established by 1991. Those were difficult years. The international business community had begun to lose faith in India. Another low phase was the mid-1990s after the South-East Asian meltdown, which caught the global business players off guard. In that kind of a situation, India was simply ignored. Also, there were the nuclear tests in 1998, which made India almost a pariah state.
What happened to the famous Claude Smadja briefing session, which used to kick off the Summit?
Yes, that used to be a big draw and also it would set the tone for the Summit. Unfortunately, his frankness might have rustled some feathers. Also Mr Smadja was not associated with the Forum after a few years.
How has the Summit changed over the years?
There have been many changes. Initially, there would be a lot of attention on announcements by policy makers at the Summit. I still remember how ministers would make it a point to announce the government’s big measures. That was understandable because India needed to gain the international investing community’s confidence. I remember how the government took a quick decision on the formation of the Investment Commission and then announced it at the Summit.
These days, there is not much focus on policy announcements. There is now more interaction among participants. There are fewer plenary sessions and more interactive sessions. The focus now is to understand India in all its aspects — its economic policies and the social issues.
How do you see the Summit celebrating its golden jubilee?
Well, Durbar Hall (the venue of the Summit) will be too small, unless there are restrictions on the number of participants. The delegates will comprise only CEOs. It will not be just one Summit, but will have many sectoral summits, simply because one large summit will not be enough to tackle all the relevant issues. Indian participation will be different — there will be many more young Indian CEOs. There will be more regulators and more representatives from non-government bodies.
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