‘Nothing should be free,’ says Narayana Murthy at Bengaluru Tech Summit

Speaking at the 26th edition of Bengaluru Tech Summit 2023, Narayana Murthy suggested that people availing government services should contribute back.

Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murthy at the Bengaluru Tech Summit expressed disapproval for freebies and urged people to give back to the society after availing services from the government at subsidized rates. He was speaking at the 26th edition of the Bengaluru Tech Summit 2023 in the Karnataka capital on Wednesday.

Narayana Murthy, Founder, Infosys, in Bengaluru. (PTI)

Saying that “compassionate capitalism” is the only solution for India to become “prosperous”, he added, “When you provide those services, when you provide those subsidies, there must be something in return that they're willing to do. For example, if you say -- I will give you free electricity, then it would have been a very nice thing for the government to have said, but we want to see the percentage attendance in primary schools and middle schools go up by 20 per cent, then only we will give you that.”

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"I am not against free services being provided. I fully understand, as I also came from a poor background once upon a time. But I think we should expect something in return from those people who received those free subsidies to take a slightly bigger responsibility towards making their own future generation, their own children and grandchildren, better in terms of going to school, you know, performing better. That's what I mean," he added.

"In order to create efficient, corruption-free and effective public goods in our country, the taxation will have to be obviously higher than what you see in developed countries. So, I personally would not at all grudge, if I have to pay a higher level of taxation," he further stated.

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Murthy also conveyed that China, which had all the same problems as us, has reached a GDP five or six times that of India's. "So all that I would humbly request our political leaders is to study China very very carefully, and then see what are the good things that we can learn from China and implement here, so that India too advances at the same pace as China, and becomes a nation that has reduced the poverty of its people," he said.

(With PTI inputs)