- Sanjiv Goenka urged West Bengal to maintain consistent policies for growth and investor trust
- He highlighted Kolkata's past stature as a hub of ambition similar to Bengaluru today
- Goenka dismissed strikes and slowdowns as obsolete issues from Bengal's past
There was a time when Kolkata was the city others measured themselves against. Industrialist Sanjiv Goenka indicated that time can return but only if West Bengal stops changing the rules mid-game.
In an exclusive interview with NDTV Editor-in-Chief Rahul Kanwal on 'Walk the Talk', the RPSG Group chairman called for one key measure to ensure Bengal grows, and that is consistency.
"Policies should not be changed every two years" Goenka said.
With a long experience in building across sectors such as power distribution, renewable energy, BPO and retail, he said consistency gives confidence to capital as it likes predictability.
Kolkata was once what Bengaluru is now, a city that drew ambition toward it, he said. Alluding to a reversal that happened over decades and through an accumulation of decisions, some of which were deliberate and complacent, Goenka said the issues are fixable beginning with removing the confidence deficit.
"As a state, we need to believe we can reach the top again," Goenka added.
The old characterisation of Bengal defined by strikes, slowdowns and institutionalised resistance to productivity have become obsolete, he said. "These are traits of Bengal's past and have completely disappeared from the Bengal system," he said, adding they are actually not problems to be solved but ghosts of the past that people keep arguing with.
On the economic fallout of the Iran-US war, Goenka said the disruption is only short-term but resilience will be a long-term thing. "The long-term consequences of the war will not be visible," he said.
Businesses that depend primarily on fuel have taken a hit, but the rest of his portfolio including renewable energy, BPO, music and power distribution has not moved significantly, the industrialist told NDTV. A diversified bet is exactly the kind of bet that holds in uncertain times, he added.
Confidence in India's consumers, markets and broader ecosystem is high enough that any shock will be absorbed, he said. "It will bounce back."
Bengaluru attracted technology investment because Karnataka held a policy line long enough for investors to trust it, and Mumbai retained its financial primacy because the infrastructure of doing business there remained legible across governments.
The Bengal assembly election will take place in two phases, on April 23 and 29. Counting is on May 4.
