Govt should focus more on healthcare: Nachiket Mor

Banks should have ambition to bring more people on net banking

In the banking and healthcare sectors the need of the hour is ambition, both from the Government and from the industries. When it comes to healthcare, Government is not willing to put money, said Nachiket Mor, Board Chair, Care India and Member - Financial Inclusion Advisory Committee for the Central Board of the Reserve Bank of India.

In his address at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Annual Regional Meeting at Chennai today, he said, in United States 16% of the GDP is spent towards healthcare, while in China it is four% and in India it is only 0.9%.

"In the 12th Plan, we pushed the Government to increase it to 1.85%. When we speak to the Health Ministry, they say it was not allocated," said Mor.

He added, Government should take a bigger role in solving issues relates to healthcare.

Speaking about the financial inclusion, Mor said more ambition is the need of the hour. "Only 35% of the citizens have got bank accounts and we are not able to take beyond a certain level in a country, where mobile reached to over one billion people".

Touching upon today's conference title 'Conscious Competitiveness', Mor said, social responsibilities at sometimes can also turn highly commercial success.

Mor shared his experience during his 25 years tenure in the banking industry. During his tenure at ICICI Bank he was assigned treasury business by K V Kamath, Chairman - ICICI Bank. "I decided not to focus on trading, but focus on small companies and small towns which other bankers did not".

One can also argue that it cam be a social case, taking the beneficiaries into account, but it also turned out to be a successful business.

"The treasury business used to report Rs 20 crore profitability, which was scaled upto Rs 800 crore".

The other example he quoted was National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX). It was decided to look at this as social responsibility, but when it was sold the returns was almost 40 times.

He added that India has a large number of problems, which offers opportunity for the entrepreneurs to find solutions to them, by which they can also grow. With a country with increasing presence of mobile phones, the telecom sector could play more role in various activities including in the payment Banks, said Mor, who headed the committee on financial inclusion which submitted its report to the Reserve Bank of India.