Infosys' Narayana Murthy lauds Modi's 'Competitive Cooperative Federalism' call

Bengaluru: Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murthy on Tuesday termed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's idea of "Competitive Cooperative Federalism" as brilliant.

"Whenever the Prime Minister speaks he brings out lots of wisdom. I am so happy that he has used 'competitive cooperative federalism'. It is a brilliant idea," Mr Murthy said on the sidelines of inauguration of Synergetic Security operation Centre of SISA here.

Addressing the nation on India's 71st Independence Day earlier this morning, PM Modi had said: "Since I have myself been a Chief Minister for long, I know that states are important for the growth of a country. I understand the importance of chief ministers and state governments.

"And that is why we focused on cooperative federalism and now competitive cooperative federalism. And now we are taking all decision together."

Appreciating the comment, Mr Murthy said the competitive aspect of the slogan would make states compete with each other to attract investors and entrepreneurs and thereby create more jobs.

He said there are areas where states would have to cooperate with the federal government in terms of fighting illiteracy in education, healthcare and nutrition.

Stating that there are many problems in the country, he said every state should cooperate fully with the union government to solve them as it was not fair to blame the Centre alone to find solutions.

"There are areas where states can compete each other and areas where they can cooperate with each other," Mr Murthy said.

Asked how he measured the success of the demonetisation exercise and that of GST, Mr Murthy said the Union government needs to be congratulated on both fronts as demonetisation has unearthed a lot of black money and GST would start yielding benefits to businessmen and government going forward.

"Demonetisation has removed a lot of black money. There is no doubt the Prime Minister himself said that somewhere around Rs. 1.25 lakh crore of black money has been unearthed and removed. I think this is something we should all congratulate the government," he said.

"GST is a mechanism wherein there is less and less hassle for business people and therefore it should be welcomed. And I believe GST will start yielding tremendous benefits to business people as well as to the government going forward," he said.

Asked as to how good was the action taken on shell companies post demonetisation, Mr Murthy congratulated PM Modi as well as Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, saying it was a step in the right direction, which would help the Indian economy.

On what India should look forward to achieve by the next Independence Day, Mr Murthy said he looks at it in a slightly different way.

"If we can create an India where the poorest child in the remotest part of the country has access to decent education; decent healthcare; decent nutrition and decent shelter, and has the confidence that society will enhance opportunities for that child to become better economically and socially...all of that we should try to achieve."