Modi optimism fading as red tape not being cut: Deepak Parekh

Pitching for relaxing "administrative controls" to improve ease of doing business, Indian business doyen and chairman of financial services giant HDFC Deepak Parekh has said that impatience has begun creeping in among businessmen as nothing has changed on ground in the first nine months of the Narendra Modi government.

He said industry is still optimistic about the changes it expects from the Modi government, but optimism is not translating into revenues and there has been little improvement on the 'ease of doing business' front so far. In fact, a recent study showed that India lags behind even Pakistan in this respect.

Parekh, who is known as a guiding voice of the Indian industry and has been on a number of key government panels on various policy and reform matters, further said that 'Make in India' can't succeed unless it is made easier for people to do business here and decisions are fast-tracked.

"I think there is still a lot of optimism among the people of the country and among the industrialists and entrepreneurs that the Modi government will be good for business, for progress, for reducing corruption. They think this government means business on all these fronts.

"However, after nine months, there is a little bit of impatience creeping in as to why no changes are happening and why this is taking so long having effect on the ground.

"The optimism is there but it is not translating into revenues. Any industry you see, when there is a lot of optimism, the growth should be faster," Parekh told PTI in an interview.

Parekh, an eminent banker, has always been very vocal with his views on reform and policy measures taken by the various governments over the past three decades.

He was among the first industry leaders to openly criticise the previous UPA Government for "policy paralysis" after a spate of scams led to decisions getting delayed within the government and business began getting hurt.

"The thing is that our Prime Minister had a lucky period in these nine months. The world commodity prices are at all-time low which help India the most," Parekh said.

Stating that India is again at a position when everyone is looking at it with high hopes, he said, "I don't see ease of doing business changing so far."

Parekh cited the example of the delay faced by his own group's HDFC Bank, the country's top private sector lender, with regard to approvals required for raising of funds, including from overseas.