Infra, legal & tax system key to India's growth

What needs to be done to position India as a center of excellence and what could hurt the India growth story? CNBC-TV18 spoke to a wide array of experts.

GK Pillai, Secretary, Ministry of Commerce & Industry: Initially we did not have the small size constraints but unfortunately, we had a number of unfortunate incidents which focused on the fact that the future of the new R&R policy and other has come into being, you will find possibly government even thinking of relaxing the upper limit for Special Economic Zones.

I think labour laws as I said was an issue, which we thought could have some flexibility but parliament in its wisdom, felt that labour laws should not be relaxed in the special economic zones. Though we have certain relaxations by the state government where they feel that in special economic zones some labour laws could be relaxed, the state themselves have the powers to do it and they go ahead and do it.

Edward J Zander, Former Chairman & CEO, Motorola, USA: We need to focus on some of the indirect taxes and some of the things that maybe difficult in future and third is the eco system around the area of figuring out how to incorporate the world and job creation and training and skill sets.

Rajat M Nag, MD-General, ADB: I think Montek Singh Ahluwalia is absolutely correct about the need to be realistic in the projections one makes about going from 6% to 9% by the end of the planning period. But our estimates show that if anything, that is going to be much on the lower side. Our numbers show that the investments might have to be as much as about 10.9% to 12.5% of GDP including of course, about 2% for maintenance and replacement. But let us not quibble about the numbers. The fact is India needs to invest very heavily in infrastructure; the infrastructure deficit is the most pressing challenge and needs to be met if the 9%-10% growth is to be achieved in this country.

Rahul Bajaj, Chairman, Bajaj Auto Ltd: Indian industry wants to be competitive, we want to compete, we are buying big and small companies abroad, we do not want protection, we do not need protection; let the inefficient die. But two things have to be noted, the competition has to be fair, there must be a level playing field and I am not talking of protection, it cannot be that the other side whether it is China or the developed world can do what they want for whatever reasons and we are expected to carry the torch for freedom or things like that.

So Indian industry wants to grow in a fair manner; we do not want to be competed against unfairly; that is a policy we would like our government to follow.