NR Narayana Murthy lauds Modi, seeks people's support for PM

Praising the Narendra Modi government, IT czar N R Narayana Murthy said a lot of good things have happened in the last one year and the Prime Minister should be supported in his endeavours.

"We have a PM who is enthusiastic and working hard. People, all parties, the Opposition should rally behind him. I think a lot of good things have happened but it's still early to say. Therefore, we must all be with the PM and support him and we continue to do things with the sense of efficiency, then I'm sure we will make some progress," Murthy said in the national capital.

Demanding stable and transparent taxation regime, he said retrospective taxes should not be levied.

Taxation policies should be "transparent, stable, easy to communicate, easy to understand and comply with and one that creates confidence about the government among tax payers and therefore collect maximum tax," he said.

"Such a tax policy should have three fundamental principles - equity, certainty by not imposing taxes in an arbitrary manner and by not levying taxes in retrospective manner and by transparent method," he said.

The former Infosys chief said efficient land allocation will benefit society as a whole.

Delivering CCI lecture, he favoured that both port and airports should be ideally run by the private sector.

Asked about his advice to entrepreneurs who are burning investor cash with no profits, Murthy said, "In the case of new technologies the models are still evolving. There are models, especially in e-commerce that are being incubated and that people say would take a long gestation period for players in that area to become profitable."

He said that new companies also have important role models so there is a need to contemplate on these business models.

"We will have to show some patience and see how these models evolve," Murthy said.

Highlighting the role of competition, Murthy said competition brings out the best in any company and leads to innovation, new ideas, services and products.

Advocating swift and fearless regulatory decisions, he said that trust and confidence in the regulators are important to attract more and more entrepreneurs to start businesses.