Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia addresses Great Lakes students

Dr. T.N Seshan, Former Chief Election Commissioner and Faculty at Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai and Great Lakes Dr Bala Balachandran.

Dr Ahluwalia stressed that thrust should be given to infrastructure development to over come the current crisis. He said that the infrastructure development had gathered momentum, thanks to the Public- private partnership model put in place, especially for road development.

Dr. Ahluwalia said This year has been very different from a year where we focused on long-term issues, we had a wonderful 4-year growth path so far which got interrupted by the global crisis. Many things were going very well but many things went wrong. Prior to the global crisis, our record was a mixed bag and it is reflected in the international assessment of India and it prospects. In the 4 years up to the current year, we had an average growth rate of 8.8%. This transition from a low growth scenario when India grew at 3.5% in 70s, but the changes made in the 80s resulted in a 5.6% growth. In the early 90s, economic reforms raised the growth rate and this was followed by the East Asian crisis, which brought down the growth rate to 5.8% in the 90s. The global economy also turned downwards in the 90s.

Dr. Ahluwalia also spoke about the banking system today, which has a surplus liquidity, and the banks have parked about Rs 60,000 crore with the RBI under reverse repo. The RBI has sought to discourage this by reducing the reverse repo rate, effectively making it less attractive to the Banks. He added that the government and RBI telling the banks to lend more. Government is also trying to create demand by stepping up investments in infrastructure.

The session began with the inaugural address from Dr. Bala Balachandran, founder of Great Lakes Institute of Management. Dr. Bala began by welcoming one and all. He said We started the MDI Gurgaon program in co-ordination with Montek, who was the secretary to the finance minister Manmohan Singh in 1991, to develop management education in India. After being involved with ISB, he felt he had to contribute to the state of Tamilnadu and the Great Lakes dream was born.

Dr. T.N Seshan began by hinting that There is every possibility Montek is going to be the next finance minister of this country. He also said that If India is able to sustain 7% in spite of a global meltdown; Montek has a major role to play. All that we have learnt in higher management is that we need to learn to live in times of change.