Is India’s Corporate Image Fading: A Big Question??

Saurabh Kr. Gupta
MBA-IT 2nd Sem, IIIT-Allahabad

          The increasing number of scams, disordered politics, culture and linguistic divide and discouraging attitudes of government toward investments tarnish India’s corporate image at the world stage. It is a matter of fear that these incidents may affect the economic growth of the country in negative way as investors prefer other nation where their money is secure and long term, smooth business is guaranteed.

          The 2G scam, mother of all scams and the Nira Radia tapes have washed the image of India. It causes the most severe damage to Indian corporate image as it includes every single constituency – the business world, government, politicians and media.

           The Satyam Computer Services financial scandal was publicly announced, when Chairman Ramalinga Raju confessed that Satyam's accounts had been falsified. This has put a big question on the role of quality of corporate governance, role of auditors and the regulatory bodies of India.

           Granting various Commonwealth Games – related projects also involved widespread corruption. The alleged misappropriation amount to about http://www.siliconindia.com/images/rupeesymbols/rs.small.jpg8,000 crore made India to bow its head in shame before the world.

           The recently completed CBI probe in to the loan-for-bribe' scam reveals that real estate giants like Adani Group, Lavasa, ,DB Realty, Kumar Developers, Mantri Realty, Emaar MGF and Suzlon bribed the officials of state-run listed lenders to get hundreds of crores of loans for their housing projects. Officials of public sector banks like Central Bank of India, Bank of India Punjab National and a top official of the LIC Housing Finance were involved in the scam.

           Cyberabad (Hyderabad ) for being the major IT hub in India, is losing its fame due to the ongoing political turmoil over the Telangana issue. The violent forms of agitations by both pro and against Telangana supporters have caused severe damage to the business climate of Hyderabad, which resulting it to category of ‘less preferred investment destination’ today.

           We cannot afford to lose the confidence of the investors in this way. Certain immediate concrete steps are needed to restore them. Also the corporate will have to learn to prevent any scams in future. While the government should bring some statutory mechanism to bring an end to political disputes.