Maruti Suzuki Chairman RC Bhargava says trust on private sector is way forward for India's growth

The way forward for India on the road to growth and development is to rely on private sector, Maruti Suzuki India Chairman RC Bhargava said on Saturday.

He credited the current government at the Centre for trusting the private sector and encouraging industry to be at the forefront of economic and industrial growth and job creation.

"After all these 60-65 years of going through government and public sector, I have no doubt in my mind that the way forward for India is to rely on the private sector," he told reporters here.

Bhargava was responding to a query on how he saw the road ahead for the industry, especially the auto industry, in India in the next 10-20 years, in the backdrop of Maruti Suzuki completing 40 years of successful operations.

He, however, said the private sector has its own faults and is not without blemishes.

"I'm not for a moment saying that private sector is perfect. If you balance the negatives and the positives of both private sector and public sector, the balance comes up far more in favour of the private sector than the public sector," Bhargava asserted.

The public sector, by its constitutional restrictions, legal structure and the way the controls and supervision happen, hasn't been efficient, he added.

"Irrespective of the kind of people you put in the public sector, and I'm not talking about individual exceptions, I'm talking about system as a whole, the public sector, is so handicapped by the entire environment...," Bhargava added.

He welcomed the government's privatisation programme, including that of Air India, while also lauding other reform measures such as ease of doing business, insolvency and bankruptcy code, GST implementation and lowering corporate taxes.

"All these things suddenly made me think that look, India's changing, India's become different again, there's hope for the future," Bhargava said. Few years ago, he said, "I had become quite pessimistic about any kind of industrial growth in India. Various things used to be said, but nothing would happen on the ground."

Bhargava said at one point he was part of a committee set up by the then Planning Commission to increase industrial competitiveness.

"We had a lot of meetings, a lot of discussions, a report was written. But then nothing happened.

It's like most government committee meetings where you have committees and file reports, but then the progress after that (is) slow storm," he lamented.

When asked about the outlook of the Indian automobile industry, Bhargava said 2022-23 will be a record year considering the improvement in semiconductor supplies with Covid-19 induced issue already behind.

"I think production in India and the car industry in 2022-23 will be the highest level. I'm not talking about Maruti alone, I'm talking about the car industry," he said.

In 2018-19, domestic passenger vehicle sales were at a record 33,77,436 units and in 2021-22 it was at 30,69,499 units.