The president-elect of industry body Assocham, Venugopal Dhoot holds contrarian views on many contemporary issues. In a conversation with The Indian Express, he shared his opinion on some of them.

Dhoot is against legislation for reservation in private sector, he says, “We don’t support the legislation because its implementation will promote Inspector Raj. That will neither help weaker sections of society nor industry.”

Assocham is in the process of setting up a monitoring mechanism that will regularly update the government for inclusive growth, Dhoot says. Assocham would support conditions for voluntary boosting of weaker sections of society by industry.

Strongly opposing the acquisition of fertile agriculture land for special economic zones (SEZs), Dhoot says that land should be leased out for industrial growth, he wants farmers to become dormant partners to reap the dividends of success of the zones.

On the opening up of retail sector to foreign investment, Dhoot maintains that it should be done in phases spread over five years. His formula: 49 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in phase one, 75 per cent after three years and 100 per cent after five years.

He admits that coalition sentiments are not in favour of allowing more than 49 per cent FDI in retail. But he thinks that political consensus is easily achievable.

On sectoral tax sops he says, “only those sectors should get incentives, which are generating employment. Government should give tax benefits on case-to-case basis”. However, he supported more sops for R&D for all sectors.

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