Indian Prime Minister’s 10-Point Charter For Inclusive Growth

“Thank you very much for inviting me to share my thoughts on “Inclusive Growth – Challenges for Corporate India”. Our Government has just completed three years in office. On this occasion, we released a “Report to The People”, setting out in great detail the policies and programmes we have been pursuing to make our economic growth processes socially and regionally more inclusive.

I clearly stated that the guiding principle of our Government has been to ensure that, while sustaining higher rates of economic growth, the improved performance of the economy must contribute to employment generation, poverty reduction and human development. The aim of each of our flagship programmes is to ensure that growth is more equitable and that it empowers the most deprived of our citizens.

While our Government will continue to create an environment friendly for the growth of manufacturing, leaders of industry must also facilitate employment creation in their industries. This requires expansion of economic activity, investment in human capabilities and the pursuit of socially, politically, environmentally, and financially sustainable growth processes.

You have all been the beneficiaries of our improved growth performance. When I read about the growing number of Indian millionaires and billionaires, about Indian companies buying up multinationals abroad, about our clogged airports, about the real estate boom, about new holiday destinations, about soaring CEO compensations, I know that you have benefited from the growth process.

I appreciate the fact that a corporate entity’s primary responsibility is to its shareholders and to its employees. Your businesses have to be globally competitive. However, even to win this race, you must work in a harmonious environment, an environment in which all citizens feel equally involved in processes of economic growth; an environment in which each citizen sees hope for a better future for him and for his or her children.

In a modern, democratic society, business must realize its wider social responsibility. The time has come for the better off sections of our society - not just in organized industry but in all walks of life - to understand the need to make our growth process more inclusive; to eschew conspicuous consumption; to save more and waste less; to care for those who are less privileged and less well off; to be role models of probity, moderation, philanthropy and charity. If those who are better off do not act in a more socially responsible manner, our growth process may be at risk, our polity may become anarchic and our society may get further divided. We cannot afford these luxuries.

I invite corporate India to be a partner in making ours a more humane and just society. We need a new Partnership for Inclusive Growth based on, as what I would describe as, a Ten-Point Social Charter.

Have a healthy respect for your workers and invest in their welfare. In their health and their children’s education, give them pension and provident fund benefits, and so on. Unless workers feel they are cared for at work, we can never evolve a national consensus in favour of much needed more flexible labour laws aimed at ensuring that our firms remain globally competitive.


Corporate social responsibility must not be defined by tax planning strategies alone. Rather, it should be defined within the framework of a corporate philosophy which factors the needs of the community and the regions in which a corporate entity functions. This is not an imported western management notion. It is a part of our cultural heritage.

Mahatma Gandhi called it trusteeship. It is based on the idea that the wealthy have an obligation to society and balance in nature. Responsibilities commensurate with their rights. I am aware that some of our companies are doing creditable work. I compliment them. But we need more such inspiring examples.

Industry must be pro-active in offering employment to the less privileged, at all levels of the job ladder. The representation companies give to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, other Backward Classes, Minorities and Women, in their workforce and staff must increase.

You must show sensitivity to those who are physically less-abled, in providing a work-place conducive to their employment. You must employ retired members of our gallant Armed Forces who spend their youth defending our nation but retire at a relatively young age.

Resist excessive remuneration to promoters and senior executives and discourage conspicuous consumption. In a country with extreme poverty, industry needs to be moderate in the emoluments levels it adopts.

Rising income and wealth inequalities, if not matched by a corresponding rise of incomes across the nation, can lead to social unrest. The electronic media carries the lifestyles of the rich and famous into every village and every slum. Media often highlights the vulgar display of their wealth.

An area of great concern is the level of ostentatious expenditure on weddings and other family events. Such vulgarity insults the poverty of the less privileged, it is socially wasteful and it plants seeds of resentment in the minds of the have-nots.

Invest in people and in their skills. Offer scholarships to promising young people. Fill young people with hope in their future. High rates of growth mean nothing for those who are unable to find employment.

We must invest in skill-building and education to make our youth employable. Indian Industry must allocate sufficient resources to skill development, either managing ITIs or setting up a network of Greenfield Skill Development Centres across the country.

Desist from non-competitive behaviour. The operation of cartels by groups of companies to keep prices high must end. It is unacceptable to obstruct the forces of competition from having freer play. It is even more distressing in a country where the poor are severely affected by rising commodity prices.

Cartels are a crime and go against the grain of an open economy. Even profit maximization should be within the bounds of decency and greed! If a liberalized economy has to succeed, we must give full play to competitive forces and the private sector should show some self-restraint in this regard.

Invest in environment-friendly technologies. India's growth must be enhanced and, yet, our environment and ecology must be protected and safeguarded for our future generations. Industry has an enormous role to play in this regard.

Evidence shows that many of our companies are becoming increasingly environment friendly. Our track record in resource use is good, but must improve further. Conservation of natural resources is a national mission. Industry can and must provide leadership on this front.

As a country of a billion plus people, with a scarcity of natural resources on a per capita basis, we cannot afford the wasteful lifestyles of the Western world. Conspicuous consumption must be reduced not just because it is socially undesirable at our level of development but also because it is environmentally unsustainable.

Promote enterprise and innova tion, within your firms and outside. If our industry has to make the leap to the next stage of development, it must be far more innovative and enterprising. The success story of the last two decades has been the emergence of a large number of first generation enterprise.

As industry aims to master increasingly complex technologies and becomes organizationally more complex, it must try to maintain its competitive edge by investing in R&D and innovation and promotion of enterprise. While government can do its bit, the larger burden is on industry.

Fight corruption at all levels. The cancer of corruption is eating into the vitals of our body politic. For every recipient of a bribe there is a benefactor and beneficiary. Corruption need not be the grease that oils the wheels of progress.

There are many successful companies today that have refused to yield to this temptation. I commend them. Others must follow. Businessmen who enter politics should erect a Chinese wall between their political activities and their businesses.

Promote socially responsible media and finance socially responsible advertising. Through your advertisement budgets and your investments in media you can encourage socially responsible media to grow and to flourish. You can promote socially relevant messages and causes.

These are 10 areas in which industry leadership can go a long way to ensure that our growth process is both inclusive and broad-based. This is not an exhaustive list. You may wish to add to it, and adopt your own Social Charter for inclusive growth. The objective of such a Social Charter would also be to encourage a culture of saving and investment. A culture of caring, sharing and belonging. We must end forever the debate whether our country’s march of progress has benefited India and not Bharat. India is Bharat.

The Social Charter I have spoken of is your responsibility to society at large. Never forget that we are what we are because of what our Motherland has given us. The time has come for us to ask ourselves what can we give her back. India has made us. We must make Bharat.” (CRBiz January 2008)