A star alumnus of the Utkal University, having had bagged two gold medals from the PG Department of Physics in 1973, Dr Kailash Chandra Mishra took to the world of academics like a fish takes to water. Thereafter, he had added degrees like CAIIB, MBA and DLit in post-doctoral education at the Wharton’s Aresty Business School, Philadelphia. A philosopher king in the empire of academia, an apostle of Oriental ethos, a management guru both at home and abroad, he is one of the best brains that this country has produced. He was Vice-Chancellor of Sri Sri University; Director of LBSIM, Delhi; Director of National Insurance Academy, Pune; Member, IRDAI Advisory Committee; Member, SEBI Market Development Committee; Member, EPFO Pension Reforms Committee; Member, RBI Reserve Management Best Practice Advisory Group; Dean, Area Chair and Professor of ASCI, SPJAIN and BOI-MDC, World Bank Temporary staff for disaster management; Board of Director and Audit Committee Chairman of UTI, Mumbai; Advisor of Planning Commission of India; Advisor to Ministry of Health on RCH and Insurance, Emeritus Professor in Management (Now attached to Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan and Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management, Delhi), Advisory Council member of only Insurance Product Rating Agency Beshaq.com, Bengaluru. He was decorated with many awards like Bhavan’s Samman for Education, UKIERI (UK and India Joint Award) for financial skill development, Student Speaker of Columbia University, USA and Best Citizen of India award by World Biographers’ Association. In an interview to The Pioneer, Dr Mishra spoke to Sugyan Choudhury on many key affairs of current economic, business affairs arising out of the Covid-19 pandemic.
As an acclaimed management guru, how do you perceive the change in global attitude for problems facing mankind in the aftermath of this pandemic?
Opinion makers of the world were busy in intellectual acrobatics on various important issues. A more-urgent issue had escaped all attention. Pandemics are a hundred-year phenomenon with return period nearer to 20s of the century. Last century had seen Spanish Flu around 1918 which lasted for three years. When Covid-19 struck the world, even the serious governments and their think tanks never took it as a disaster. They were still busy listening to the distant drums created from their intellectual membrane. Crisis is at every body’s door and its urgency brings out the best in human creativity. The ongoing suffering will eventually give rise to a new healthcare world in particular and new lifestyle in general.
How do you see evolution of online trading in India?
Online trading or e-commerce is a great tool for productivity anywhere in the world. Amazon or Alibaba showed how quickly success can be harnessed. Online trading requires a robust platform, seamless logistics and ethical behaviour towards customers. It has no geographical limitation excepting compliance of law of the land of operation and regulatory compliances. While logistics is the forward integration of the platform, producers are the backyard integration. The Reliance Jiomart is scaling up very fast while Flipkart or Amazon had already established their presence. Online trading will flourish in India exponentially given the consumer base and changing preference of particularly urbanites. Even erstwhile brick and mortar businesses like Wallmart have become online traders. There will be weeding out of some non-serious or un-optimised platforms. but in general the hybrid model of producer, platform, logistics and outlets are going to coexist in many forms. They are and will be the biggest employment providers.
What do you see of the economic fallouts of this pandemic in India?
Vulnerability is the key. Pandemic is a global phenomenon, which will shrink economic size and growth of most countries. Countries which have developed Venezuela syndrome where governments at top are corrupt and unimaginative, people are lazy as they are used to government largesse harnessed either from exploitation of natural resources or still worse from borrowings, are most certainly going to be in distress with hunger, crime and unemployment. Governments with good leadership like Germany, New Zealand and Vietnam have safeguarded life of their citizens ensuring smooth retention of their livelihoods. They protect systemic values of institutions. They separate electoral politics compulsions from technical imperatives like efficiency, rationality and administration with an eye on pluralism of values and culture.
According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), nearly 25 million jobs could be lost world wide due to pandemic meaning income losses for workers to the tune of US$ 3.4 trillion by the end of 2020. This will translate into a temporary fall in the consumption of goods and services; and, in turn, affect the national economies. But economies with strong economic governance capability, absorption capacity of intermediate enabling technology, genuine skill development efforts and cheap power and labour will come out strong.
India livelihood situation during this period can be highlighted by some major trends in the national-level employment. As per the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), around 47% adults are working in the country with dependence multiplier of 3, almost 52%workers are self-employed followed by casual workers 25% and the remaining 23% are regular or salaried workers. Of these, the casual workers are the most vulnerable due to the irregular nature of their work. Almost 96% of the self-employed are either own-account workers or unpaid family worker or sole workers with only 4% constituting employers or entrepreneurs. These sole workers are as vulnerable as casual workers.
Special Insurance Scheme for Covid Health workers, PMGarib Kalyan Ann Yojana, augmented PM Kisan Samman Nidhi, PMGKY components, augmented MNREGA, National Rural Livelihood Mission and few other welfare schemes are announced for providing relief to such vulnerable workers. The package of 1,7 lakh crore announced for the purpose may not be adequate given the dimension and duration of vulnerability. The stimulus package looks very cosmetic and without application of economic and welfare mind.
The unemployment situation is growing bleaker. Government should not continue to be in denial mode. Problem can be assuaged only if it is honestly recognised. GDP had already decelerated its growth due to unimaginative economic governance even in pre-pandemic days. During pandemic de-growth is obvious but post pandemic, there may be a U-shaped recovery if economic governance is adequately toned up. Indian spirit will delink itself from electoral politics menace to restore its growth.