For India to grow in double-digit figures, there is a need to have 4 broader reforms, tells R Mukundan, Managing Director & CEO of Tata Chemicals and the President of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) for the 2026-27 term. Mukundan, in an interaction with TNIE's Arshad Khan, has suggested Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Schemes for new and emerging businesses, and access to foreign capital and technologies, so Indian firms can compete against global brands. In an interview with TNIE as CII President, Mukundan pitched the idea of building Brand India, the West Asia crisis and India Inc’s stand on AI and semiconductor businesses. Edited Excerpts:
From tariff to geopolitical tension, there is so much uncertainty across the globe. Can India and India Inc thrive in such a volatile environment ?
I think if you look at the current context, there are broadly 2 themes which will run for the long term and one theme, which is going to be the episode. The thing which is gonna run for the long term is fundamentally what our external affairs minister calls: Unipolar to Multipolar. The impact of that will be felt over a long period of time and will keep changing. The second theme is two forces on us - digital AI, and sustainability and climate. The third, which I call an episode, is the geopolitical tension. Today, five wars are fought across the world, and we get news of only one. These wars severely affect the supply chain and disrupt trade activity. I think countries will do a lot now, especially in terms of building alternate routes and diversifying supply.
If you go by the past track record of over 25 years, only 3 economies, above $150 billion in size, have grown greater than 6% consistently, except for one or two COVID years. These economies are India, China and Vietnam. If you take a figure of more than half a trillion, only India and China have managed to grow in this range. We can certainly thrive, but our aim should be to thrive the most. We have to push our GDP growth into double digits, and for that we need reforms.
What sort of reforms are you suggesting or seeking from the government?
There are broadly 4 kinds of reforms we are talking about. One is foundation reform, the second is factor reform, the third is future-ready reform, and the fourth is fiscal and monetary reform. These reforms include improving the ease of doing business ecosystem, focusing on agriculture and MSMEs, giving a boost to exploration and mining, labour reforms, and establishing GST-like Councils for critical reform areas like Agriculture, Power, Land, Education and Health, investing in AI and emerging technology and a wide range of taxation reforms to boost FDI and bring meaningful changes in the PLI scheme.
How long do you think India Inc will take to recover from the West Asia crisis?
I won’t go into quarter-by-quarter details. Overall, demand has largely held up. There was a concern that if the situation dragged on, demand could weaken, but that hasn’t happened. However, cost pressures remain. Companies are absorbing some of these costs, which is having an impact. As the situation eases, I expect those cost pressures to gradually diminish.
India has signed multiple foreign trade agreements (FTAs) in recent times. What opportunities do you see here for the corporate sector?
What happened now is that we work closely with finance, external affairs, and the commerce ministry when it comes to FTAs. When the tariff issue was going on, we had to find alternate markets, and Indian industries did find them in a short time. This clearly tells you the opportunity. What we have to focus on now is building Brand India. We need to attract foreign investment, foreign capital and foreign technology. We also need access to foreign markets. We have to reach out to countries like, for example, Korea, where the utilisation of free trade is 33% versus 88% they utilise. The 55% is an opportunity for us, for which we have to take teams there and promote India as a sourcing point and manufacturing hub for them.
There is a wide criticism that India has missed the AI and semiconductor race. Why are there no companies in India which can compete with OpenAI, TSMS or even SpaceX?
If you look at the previous way, which was digital and smart industry and industry 4.1, i think the Indian industry adapted very well. On AI, it's an early stage. We are certainly working to make sure that we are creating the backbone in terms of data centres and others for data to be there. But in terms of modern development, I think maybe as a stack, it may come a little bit later, as we may not want to do everything at the same time. In terms of what India has achieved in space, what ISRO is doing is extremely commendable. What we need now is a PLI scheme in the aerospace sector. I think access to capital has to be there for new private sector companies.