Depending on government orders, says L&T Chairman

With the absence of new projects undertaken by the private sector, India's leading infrastructure and engineering conglomerate Larsen & Toubro (L&T) has been depending on government orders heavily and the challenging phase would continue, group's Chairman A.M. Naik said here on Thursday.

"Last two-three years have been challenging in terms of growth perspective, particularly industry. Majority of private sectors are under strain and they did not come up with any new projects.

"Five years back, L&T used to have 30 per cent of businesses from private sector while it had about 40-50 per cent of business from government... Today, we have 60 per cent dependence on government (orders)," Naik told BTVi in an interview.

To bring about double digit growth has been a big challenge and the group had to struggle and would continue to struggle, he said, adding a majority of infrastructure companies has closed down.

"Because, they are under stress," Naik said.

He hoped the situation would improve in 2018-19 but said constant elections cycle would mean the governments - in states and at the Centre - might be distracted from the objective of nation building.

"My only problem is there are elections after elections. There are elections in Karnataka, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and then 2019 General elections. All the ministers are in the election mode already... I do not know whether there is full attention or not," he said.

Earlier, the group could manage this challenging phase as Middle-East was doing well. But, now the spurt in Middle East countries has stopped as the oil prices went down.

--IANS

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