It takes too much time in India to close down a business. There are no clear guidelines to exit a business in an orderly fashion, and the challenge is to implement the Bankruptcy Code introduced by the government to enable bankrupt businesses to close down in a systematic manner, Kris S. Gopalakrishnan, co-founder of Infosys, and Chairman, Axilor Ventures, has said.
“Today, it takes too much time to close down a business in India and there are no clear guidelines for declaring bankruptcy, entering into an agreement with lenders and exiting in a orderly fashion. That’s what the bankruptcy laws are allowing us to do,” he said. Mr. Gopalakrishnan said companies cannot disobey laws of the land.
The former vice-chairman of Infosys said the policy environment in the country was improving and India’s rank in the Ease of Doing Business index showed that things were changing on the ground. However, manufacturing start-ups still require lots of permissions, he said adding that the changes in policy mechanisms were an ongoing process.
On the large number of start-ups coming up in the country, Mr. Gopalakrishnan said it was quite positive that about 15-20% of students passing out were now entering the start-up space. “We need to create an ecosystem which supports them. Mentoring is a big challenge in India and mentoring in Tier-2, Tier-3 cities is an even bigger challenge because you don’t have enough successful entrepreneurs who understand technology and who can help these companies,” he said.
He said that technology could be used to mentor these youngsters and start-ups and also leverage the experience of CII members. “Funding is available (for these start-ups). Any good idea will get funding,” Mr. Gopalakrishnan said.
On Tuesday, Tamil Nadu IT Minister M. Manikandan presented awards to companies with emerging innovations in the State. Shankar Narasimhan, Gyan Data Pvt Ltd, Prem K. Vishwanath, Cloud Cherry Pvt Ltd, Hemalatha Annamalai, Ampere Vehicles Pvt Ltd, Kunhamed Bicha, Avalon Technologies, were given awards.
Mohan Pyare, IAS, Commissioner of Land Administration, was presented the e-Governance award for implementing online patta transfer; R. Vasuki, IAS, Sipcot, was given the IT ecosystem award while Vanitha Narayanan, chairman, IBM, was given the Global Influencer of the year 2017 award.