Business better than perception, says Sunil Mittal

Praising the government for its initiatives to deal with the current economic issues, Mittal said, "I have never seen in a long period of time, the finance ministry being so pro-active in looking up issues...informing us what is going on. I want to say business is better than perception."

He said this after meeting Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee here.

Disagreeing with some industrialists who had raised concerns over policy paralysis in the government, Mittal, who is the Chairman and Group CEO of Bharti Enterprises, said, "Well, I think, lots of steps are being taken. I am delighted that very pro-active programmes running here."

Wipro Chairman Azim Premji had recently ctiticised the government for its failure to address the economic issues.

"The biggest concern is over the governance issues. There is complete absence of decision-making among the leaders in the government," Premji had said earlier in the month.

A group of prominent personalities that included Premji, Keshub Mahindra of Mahindra and Mahindra and HDFC's Deepak Parekh, in an open letter to the national leadership had expressed concerns over a series of scams leading to what they termed as "governance deficit".

Mittal, however, sounded more like the head of USD 150- billion multinational company General Electric Jeffery Immelt who had said business was not as bad as the general mood.

"While I am no economist to make a prognosis, what I can say is that the underlying business is better than the mood," Immelt, who was in India last month, had said.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh too in his remarks at the recent National Development Council (NDC) had warned the nation to shun the mood of negativism.