Ease of doing business, yes, but ‘speed’ of doing business is also important, said R. Mukundan, the newly anointed president of India Inc’s industry body, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). He also had another ask—another centre-state council on the lines of the GST Council.
Mukundan, who is also managing director of Tata Chemicals, took over as CII President last month, and his antidote to investment proposals not getting speedy clearances, or worse, getting quagmired in red tape at the state and local levels, is a second GST Council.
Well, almost. In an exclusive interview with The Week, Mukundan explained his idea: “For future readiness, I think we want to draw the example from the GST Council. If you look at one centre-state collaborative change which has been massive, I think that would be the GST Council.”
Mukundan’s idea is to form a GST-format-like cooperation council consisting of ministers and top bureaucrats from the centre as well as states to ensure coordination when it comes to subjects under the concurrent list (52 subjects, ranging from education to marriage laws, come under the concurrent list of the Seventh Schedule of the Indian Constitution).
“When I speak about factor reform, foundational reform, one future-ready reform could be that we need to (form such a council) wherever it is a concurrent subject, wherever centre and states are involved,” he said.
The idea is simple. Many investors run scared of the infamous Indian red tape, and quite often what is promised at the top, at a policy level in New Delhi, often turns into something else when it comes to ground realities. His solution? A council which will facilitate seamless coordination right from the top policy-level clearance down to the local-level permissions required, like land allotment, electricity, NOCs etc.
India Inc’s focus on subjects under the concurrent list becomes lucid when you realise that many areas of concern to business investors and capital-investing corporates are areas on that list—from civil law to electricity and the environment.
“We form a similar council like the GST where states get involved with the policymaking so that there is an early adoption and early rollout without any, well I can't call it frictionless, but less friction!”
“Friction will always be there because India is such a diverse country,” he explained.
But the aim of such a concept would be to smoothly speed up investment opportunities through a better-coordinated ‘single window’ system.
Mukundan feels there is no time to be lost, since he felt that India is at an inflection point where it has to take advantage of even the adverse conditions we have seen popping up on and off in the last few years, right from the pandemic to successive wars, oil crises and the advent of AI.
“We need to look at ease of doing business, cost of doing business and speed of doing business. All three need to get addressed. A lot has been done, but we need to do more,” he said.
