Snapdeal’s Kunal Bahl hails PAN card as common identifier for businesses

Snapdeal CEO Kunal Bahl, while speaking at the BT Budget 2023 Roundtable, hailed PAN card as a common identifier for businesses. He further emphasised on digitisation by saying that it is a very positive step towards productivity, efficiency and ease of accessibility. The government of India is constantly working in that direction.

On digitisation, Bahl said, “We are living in such an exciting time in our country because India is the most digitised economy in the world and brings with it so many advantages. It plays a pivotal role in our daily lives as we have UPI, ONDC for democratising the health care sector and we will see the benefits very soon. DigiYatra is yet another example of the growth of digitisation. PAN Card is the single source of truth in the future. With the government focusing on data embassies, it can only be determined that digitisation is the main focus of the country right now.”

The panel discussion saw participation from Parvesh Minocha, Chairman, Feedback Infra, Patanjali Keswani, CMD, Lemon Tree Hotels, Navneet Munot, MD & CEO, HDFC Mutual Fund, Kunal Bahl, CEO, Snapdeal, Rahul Garg, Founder and CEO, Moglix and Prashant Tripathi, MD & CEO, Max Life Insurance.

On being asked about the hotel industry’s growth, Patanjali Keswani, CMD, Lemon Tree Hotels said that the hotel industry is in the discretionary sector and it will see an upswing in the next 4-5 years.

“A hotelier can make 80 per cent profit in just two years. I assume that there will be a period in India where any hotelier will make a crazy amount of money. If the GDP grows at 5 per cent, the hotel sector will grow at 10 per cent as the industry eventually grows at 1.5 per cent. With that GDP rate, the average price of a hotel room will be double of what it costs today," Keswani said.

Meanwhile, Navneet Munot, MD & CEO, HDFC Mutual Fund said that in the last few years, India has seen a consumption-led growth and one can see the difference between government capex, corporate capex and household capex.

“Govt is leading in terms of capital expenditure.Banking sector’s balance sheet is in great shape and the capacity utilisation is increasing. India is clearly an oasis of hope and I truly believe that household capex has been increasing year after year and that means structurally we are moving in the right direction. When that happens, we have a more sustained increase in consumption. When the investment cycle kicks in, jobs will be generated and people will consume and save more and it goes into investment, which in turn creates more investment and jobs. We are likely to enter a virtuous cycle after a very long time,” he added.

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