Zee Media Buruea
New Delhi: Showing signs of restlessness, Deepak Parekh, Chairman of HDFC, on Wednesday said there have been no improvement on ease of doing business in the country despite the government's promise and that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had 'lucky 9-months' with fall in oil price.
Prime Minister Modi had "lucky 9-months" with fall in oil price but no change on ground and no improvement on ease of doing business, Parekh said.
With international crude oil prices falling to a 5-year low of about USD 45 per barrel, the central government had been cutting the prices of petrol and diesel over the past months.
Since August 2014, the price of petrol had been cut by Rs 17.11 per litre in ten reductions whiel the price of diesel had been cut by Rs 12.96 a litre since its deregulation in October.
However, on Monday government hikeed the price of petrol by 82 paisa per litre and diesel by 61 paisa, reversing the declining trend of last six months.
Speaking to an agency, Parekh, nevertheless, expressed confidence on the Modi government and said the industry was still optimistic.
But impatience is creeping in as optimism is not translating into revenue, he added.
Coincidentally, a majority of business leaders had earlier, in an Assocham survey, said "not much" has changed on the ground in the last six months, while many of them do not foresee any change in investment plans even during the current quarter.
"Not much has changed on the ground at the industry level in the last six months," Assocham said citing its 'Business Confidence Index' survey.
It, however, added that the situation is going to improve within first half of 2015, as reflected in the optimism about sales volume and hiring of workforce by corporates.
"As many as 54.2 percent of the respondents in the confidence measuring survey said not much has really changed at the operating level in the last six months, but more number of industry leaders expressed optimism about the shape of things to improve going forward," the industry body said.
The survey also found that 45.8 percent of business leaders believe that the January-March 2015 quarter won't see any change in their domestic investment plans, while similar outlook was noticed with regard to international investments.
Besides, the industry believes that export market will remain sluggish.
A considerable 41.7 percent, however, expect hiring prospects to improve in the current quarter and the subsequent months.
With PTI Inputs
