TEAM HERALD
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PANJIM: The system is such that it allows the politicians and bureaucrats to profit from power by indulging in corruption which is a serious impediment to investment in the country, said Dr Shashi Tharoor, the Minister of State for Human Resource Development, while delivering the keynote address on the issue of ‘looking beyond profits’, at the Pan IIM World Management Conference on ‘Emerging issues in management’, in Panjim, Friday.
Tharoor also stressed that profits do not only mean the net figures shown in the company books, but also the net gain and net loss of the community around which the company or the industry is investing.
“Corruption has become a factor, a consideration for starting businesses. In a place where you have already invested money and the officials say that they will not grant you permission unless you pay them a bribe and because you have already begun paying back your loans so you ultimately pay them,” Tharoor said adding that firms would also have to include the cost factor of paying officials under the table, when calculating profits and this discourages investment.
He said that profits should not be calculated based on the money made, but on the net gain.
“Let’s say, we have to build a highway. Is there a net loss because we are chopping down trees to build it or is there a net gain because we’ll be promoting economic activity?” Tharoor asked seeking that such studies should be done for all industrial activity and that even mining of resources should be subjected to the same test especially since once we have used the resource we are so much poorer.
“A factory emitting smoke has to factor in the health costs of the people who reside in the surrounding areas and are breathing that air, before deciding what is the profit or loss,” Tharoor emphasised.
Expressing his ‘personal opinion’ on the suggestion that governments govern and not do business, Tharoor also said that he was not a ‘huge fan’ of public sector undertakings.
“PSUs should be small and should be in areas which need public ownership,” Tharoor said adding that he is for a fully privatized domestic aviation industry with some companies being made to mandatorily fly non-profit routes such as Guwahati and Aizwal in the national interest.
The government to which Tharoor belongs, is at the eye of the storm over allegations of corruption running into astronomical figures and ranging over a spectrum of scams from defence, to coal to infrastructure and telecom.
