Achievement tempered by realism, India’s cognoscenti salutes Dr Singh

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: Monday, July 24 marks 15 years of economic reforms in India. How do India’s movers and shakers view this period? FE reporters Sudipta Datta, Neha Sharma, Reema Jose and Somashukla Sinha Walunjkar spoke with a spectrum of India’s elite to understand how reforms have changed their lives.

It’s hardly surprising that crorepati broker Rakesh Jhunjhunwala is gung-ho about Dr Manmohan Singh's reforms. After all, he has seen his fortunes rise and touch the sky with the sensex (notwithstanding the rough patch it is going through now) from around the 1,500 level in July, 1991, when the doc read out his prescription for an ailing economy, to the 10,000+ levels it is today. “We have grown from an economy of shortages to an economy of plenty” says Jhunjhunwala.

The change has been so dramatic that others like T V Mohandas Pai, Infosys’ HR director, even say that India got its economic freedom in 1991. “Looking back, one wonders how we tolerated such a grave affront to our rights,” he says. Pai rues that the country did not change track in the 1970s — China started its reforms in 1979 — when the quota-licence raj destroyed business morals.

For ICICI Bank deputy managing director Chanda Kochhar, it’s the change in quality of life since 1991 that appeals the most. “People can now fulfil their desires much earlier... buy a house, car, cellphone and so forth in their early 30s. They don’t need to save till retirement to live the good life.”

True, it was never easier to own a home (interest rates have dropped from 16-18% to 8-9%), or a four-wheeler (from waiting in queue for five years for a Bajaj scooter, we are now being chased, literally, to choose from a bevy of cars) or phones (we have grown from a nation of less than six million fixed line phones in 1991 to over 120 million fixed and mobile phones today).

Even the fashion fraternity, often the butt of jokes for its complete disconnect with the utilitarian needs of the common man, has benefited indirectly, says designer Rohit Bal: “Thanks to the increase in earning and pay capacities, fashion and lifestyle are the two areas people spend the most once they have invested in homes, cars and other basic luxuries.”