Tamil Nadu Minister for Finance and Human Resource Management Palanivel Thiagarajan said in Kochi on Saturday that one of the greatest failures of democracy in general, and Indian democracy in particular, was that a few got too many benefits while many others got far less or nothing at all.
“Entrepreneurship is a way to break some of that because the true nature of capitalism requires level-playing fields, creative disruptions, innovation, and upsetting established orders,” he said at the TiE Kerala Awards ceremony. He added that it was not an efficient market outcome if there were very few people who controlled the bulk of the economy or stock market or public exchange.
“We need lakhs and lakhs of successful entrepreneurs and not two, three, or five who control a large part of the economy. I think entrepreneurship in general, particularly disruptive technology-driven scalable entrepreneurship, is more important,” he said.
Stating that the greatest limitation or barrier to successful outcomes is the lack of administrative and execution capability, Mr. Thiagarajan said it was true for enterprises and political parties. “One of the main reasons for one party to be successful today is that they have this outstanding commitment and people to execute. Their philosophy may be different from mine. But I can’t fault their execution capability,” he added.
The Minister pointed out that the Tamil Nadu government had encouraged the start-up ecosystem by taking initiatives like the ‘Start-up to Government Buy Day’, in which start-ups got an opportunity to pitch their innovative ideas to various departments. “The government is also providing seed fund to encourage start-ups offering various solutions to the departments. Our idea is to grow along with the company,” he said.
Justice A.K. Jayasankaran Nambiar of the Kerala High Court and TiE Global Board Chairman B.J. Arun spoke.
