MUMBAI: Businessman
Ajay Piramal on Friday spoke out against frequent raids, searches and lookout notices by various government agencies on corporates, and blamed these actions for creating a “mistrust” among the business community.
The comments on the business climate come at a time when many top business leader, including L&T’s AM Naik and others have been flagging these concerns. However, the massive
corporate tax
cuts last week has resulted in more optimism. It also comes at a time when regulators and enforcement agencies are very busy with actions like stopping Jet Airways founder Naresh Goyal from flying abroad, raiding Videocon group founders etc.
Piramal chose to make the concerns public at the World Hindu Economic Forum which began in the financial capital. “Today I see there is a gap, there is mistrust between the people who are in power and the people who are wealth- creators.” he said.
“Why do we need to have everything criminalised if there is a charge of an offence against you? With so much of information available, with so much of data available, do you need to have searches and raids? Do you need to have lookout notices issued? It does not give a positive feeling to any businessman.”
He said “what is critical is wealth-creators get the respect they deserve.”
Piramal
said availability of capital is also a challenge at present. He added that high interest rate regime is another challenge, as it makes exports uncompetitive, and pointed out that domestic businesses pay up to 14% interest on borrowing as against 2-3% in developed markets.
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