Kotak Mahindra Bank managing director Uday Kotak, who is also the newly elected president of industry chamber CII, urged India Inc to take advantage of the opportunity thrown up by COVID-19 crisis he said, those with lower leverage should not shy away from making fresh and bold investment in the new strategic sectors.

“I do believe that in today’s times businesses and companies who have relatively lower fixed operating costs and who have lower leverage are very well positioned to take advantage of the opportunity ahead of us,” he said.

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Kotak acknowledged that poor corporate governance and excessive leverage haunted Indian industry in the past, he said, it is time to take a fresh view on investment, with cleansing of unhealthy elements in the functioning of the corporate sector almost over now.

He further added that there is an opportunity to revive some of the dead assets and look at them with a fresh view and make investment at a time when long-term interest rates are coming down.

In an interview with the PTI, Kotak said that this is a time for India and Indian business to transform and take a positive approach, he said adding that he was extremely enthused by the Prime Minister’s positioning on AtmaNirbhar Bharat.

In order to achieve AtmaNirbhar Bharat or self-reliant India, he said, it is imperative to increase investment in the social sector including healthcare, education, environment and rural infrastructure.

The country needs to increase investment in healthcare from 1.3 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) to somewhere between five to 10 per cent of the GDP, he added.

He said that India Inc has to redefine what it considers investment for the future and go after that.

Historically, we have been measuring investment in a narrow sense, like auto capacity and steel capacity. That is needed, but the broader vision requires us to increase investment in healthcare, education, mother nature (environment) and rural India as the priority, he said adding that the nation needs investment to spur growth and that is going to make us AtmaNirbhar Bharat.

“The second part of AtmaNirbhar Bharat, which I think is important, is that we need to be self-reliant and competitive and engaged with the world. Therefore, I do not see any inconsistency between self-reliance and competitiveness, we must do both.

“That is the inherent message of the Prime Minister and we really need to go down that path because, very often, turning points redefine our history and we are at one such turning point,” he said.

On achieving the goal of USD 5 trillion-economy by March 2025, Kotak said the one has to think in terms of five-day cricket test match. One cannot predict what would happen on the fifth day on the basis of performance on the first day, he added.

“We are still on day one, just after lunch… We have had very bad weather. The ball is swinging a lot and it’s very difficult for the batsman to bat on that pitch because of COVID-19. But do we make a judgement of what will happen at the end of fifth day, or is it a little early. Let’s see how we can granularly get our growth back,” he said.

The nation needs to gradually get back to the February 2020 levels and as we build that innings, we can then take a call on speeding up the game, said Kotak.

When asked about the government being criticised for its Rs 20.97 lakh crore-economic package, Kotak said, there will undoubtedly be a requirement for further fiscal support.

“Some of it will have to be on the demand side, but it will have to be very carefully sequenced and calibrated… We need to look at sustaining demand beyond immediate pent up demand, and therefore sequencing of demand side support by the government has to be there,” he said.

He expressed hope that the government may be planning to push demand through another stimulus down the road.