Comment: S Mahalingam

Thinking global and governing local

There are three areas of critical importance to my company — exchange rates, inflation and yield on funds — we can deploy. The credit policy announced reflects the government’s thinking that a tight monetary policy will tame inflation. Evidently, this is RBI’s answer to the anticipated world scenario marked by a continuing surge in global commodity prices.

RBI seems to be shifting from its calibrated approach with a rise of 50 basis points in the repo rate. This could exert pressure on the bottomline of banks, as well as realty and auto companies.

We all agree with RBI’s step of assigning top priority to inflation and I hope we are seeing the last of rises in interest rates. There is deceleration in investment and we will not be able to forsake growth for long. These measures will curtail demand in the short run. We need to go beyond demand management to supply management.

S Mahalingam CFO, Tata Consultancy Services