Union home minister P Chidambaram on Saturday expressed confidence that India will achieve 9% growth in 2011 and said the fundamental issues of governance, regulatory and ethical deficits needed to be addressed in order to sustain the growth.
"In the current year, we are confident of reaching 9% growth rate... Our goal (of sustained growth) cannot be achieved unless fundamental issues like governance deficit, regulatory deficit and ethical deficit are addressed," he said.
"You need to pay attention to these fundamental issues...," he urged captains of industry, while addressing the Centenary Celebrations of Southern India Chambers of Commerce and Industry (SICCI) here tonight.
Pointing that the country needed to look into "governance deficit", he said, "When we recognise 9% growth rate, we cannot have huge deficits in sectors like shipping, power, road and transport. All these sectors contribute for the country's growth."
He said, "There has to be regulatory mechanism for certain sectors. It is because of regulatory deficit, major banks collapsed worldwide. However, in India, real estate, mining, quary and transport still remained unregulated. We need to put in place regulatory mechanism as these sectors drive growth."
He said that ethical deficit in businesses was happening as many industries were only focused on "maximising their profits". "In the chase for maximising the profits, the worst suffer is the business ethics..", he said.
{{/usCountry}}He said that ethical deficit in businesses was happening as many industries were only focused on "maximising their profits". "In the chase for maximising the profits, the worst suffer is the business ethics..", he said.
{{/usCountry}}"Our goal cannot be achieved in bringing prosperity of 120 crore people, unless we address the issue of ethical deficit (in businesses) which has been exposed in the last few months," he said.
He also recalled speech made by US President Barack Obama during his visit in India who said, "When (Prime Minister) Dr Manmohan Singh speaks, the whole world listens". "Obama did not exaggerate it. In 20 years, we have taken India as the fastest emerging economy in the world," he said.