India needs a fighting spirit to get back to the 9 per cent gross domestic product (GDP) level, said N.R. Narayana Murthy, Executive Chairman, Infosys. He said poverty can be removed only by creating more jobs.
Mr. Murthy was speaking after inaugurating the new facility of Primacy Industries in the city on Wednesday. The company’s factory, which manufactured aromatic candles, mainly for the U.S. market, was gutted in a fire in January last year.
He said, “A can-do spirit is required to revive the economy, which is in the doldrums.” The spirit should be revered and practised “to get back to the 9 per cent GDP and to remove poverty”.
In these days of profligacy when current account deficit (that is the difference between imports and exports) was running amok and when the country was importing much more than exporting, every penny counted.
Mr. Murthy said, “There is a lesson for those in other sectors, that life is full of ups and downs and it is when you are down that you need large doses of optimism, encouragement and a can-do spirit” that was demonstrated by those who led the company after the fire. When such calamities happen, it was important not to wail, cry, get dispirited and demotivated.
Primacy set an example for society, workers, corporate leaders, governments, and “for all of India”, he said. “You are extremely good role models to the rest of the country,” he said.
Mr. Murthy said regardless of what people say creation of jobs would lead to reduction of poverty. Instead of abandoning the factory and moving on to some other industry, they rebuilt it, and got back the jobs which mattered to the 850 employees, their families and dependents.
The co-founder of Infosys said, “Thanks to my stay in Europe, in France where I studied capitalism, socialism and communism and met leaders of all three ‘isms’, I concluded that the only way to remove poverty is through creation of jobs.”
