Anand Mahindra bats for making life simpler for Indian innovators

The PLI schemes are on the right path providing a runway for businesses to foray into new sectors and industries, he said

Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra on Sunday urged the government to make ‘life simpler’ for Indian innovators who are ‘pioneers and potential’ unicorns.

Speaking at the 4th Annual Atal Behari Vajpayee Lecture, Mahindra said all startups he has spoken to, have said “they were at sea in the maze of existing regulations and controls that are applied to them, sometimes even retrospectively.”

“The government is working on the increased ease of business for investors. How about making life simpler for our innovators who are pioneers and potential unicorns? We need regulators to work as partners and proponents rather than being seen as taskmasters,” he said.

“We need to encourage astronomical amounts of innovation for a resurgent India and the lesser obstacles there are in the way, the better,” he emphasized.

Mahindra said India spends a lower share of its GDP, less than 1 per cent on research and development than US and China, which spend more than 2 per cent.

He also felt that government-funded research and its impact on industry and civil society is an area that needs to be exploited.

 “Our institutions of higher learning and research could do with much more government funding to generate such seminal innovations that can eventually be commercialised,” he said.

Further, the manufacturing costs are ‘unnecessarily high’, he reasoned.

Land costs, utility costs, logistics costs – all contribute to our lack of competitiveness.

“More focus on improving cost structures, more advances on the ports model, will have a multiplier effect on industry,” he said.

India needs to think on a larger scale, he explained.

“We need larger scale corporations in media, which can digest the up-front financial risk required to turn this heritage into new IP and content. Reliance’s acquisition of Disney India is a welcome step in this direction,” Mahindra elaborated.

“Korea and Japan helped their companies build scale through industrial policy and protectionism until their companies reached scale enough to go global. That is not a path that India chose, and I am glad we didn’t. But we do need nurturing and the incentivisation for scale. Not through protectionism but support for a limited-time horizon,” he explained.

The PLI schemes are on the right path providing a runway for businesses to foray into new sectors and industries, he added.

He also spoke of the role of soft power, and how it can be scaled up. 

“India has also done well when it comes to culture. Our films are enjoyed across the world in countries as far apart as Israel and Japan. American college students form Bhangra clubs. Indian music has influenced world music from jazz to the Beatles,” he said.

“But we need to think on a larger scale. Just look at the K-wave that is sweeping the world. South Korea has had an outsized impact on the world. Maybe, India needs to change gears to create its I-wave,” he added.