It’s time for India Inc to join capex cycle and increase investment: Kumar Mangalam Birla 

Over the last decade, the government has increased its capex by 5-fold. It is now time for India’s businesses to increase their investment and participate in the capex cycle, Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairperson of Aditya Birla Group, feels.  

Amid slow private capex, he urged India’s corporates, startup sector and MSME business to take the growth momentum forward, which was started by the government in the past few years by creating a supporting ecosystem. He also emphasised business growth, innovation, talent and sustainability as key drivers behind the Viksit Bharat dream.  

“We (businesses) have the capacity and the responsibility to define the vision for development and shape the India of tomorrow,” the billionaire added. 

Speaking at the Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s 189th Foundation Day event, he highlighted that India’s next level of growth will come from leveraging technology across sectors like manufacturing, agriculture, healthcare and education among others.  

He said, “It’s time for India’s private sector to innovate and harness the power of technology for transformational change. In fact, a recent PwC analysis suggests that up to 40% of India’s $10-trillion economy in 2034 should be derived from new solutions hence the need for innovation.” 

Birla also emphasised the need to invest in talent, which is the biggest asset for the growth of India.  

According to him, India will have 1 billion working-age people by 2030 and this is the power of Viksit Bharat but this workforce needs to be skilled as per the changing needs of the industry in the light of new-age technologies like AI, which have created many new jobs like machine learning engineers, AI research scientists, user experience designers, robotics engineers and cyber security. 

Lastly, he talked about the importance of economic growth and social equity to advance in sync to make transformation and growth sustainable. Being a sustainable business would mean transitioning to renewable sources, and reducing waste, these would be gateways for responsible growth and development in future says Birla. 

The comments come at a time when growth has hit a seven-quarter low of 5.4 per cent for the July-September period as per official data. Reluctance to invest and a preference to operate at higher capacities have been diagnosed as one of the contributors to the growth slowdown.