India’s top corporate leader, Mukesh Ambani, who heads the country’s most valued firm, RIL, feels that the nation should go beyond mere lip service on financial inclusion and create millions of jobs for growth. Mukesh Ambani was awarded the NDTV Profit business leadership award which was presented to him by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
"Inclusion and all that is what I call lip service and we need some concrete action and make sure we create enough learning opportunities for 10 to 15 million people and at the end of the day, we need equitable growth," Mr. Ambani said after receiving the NDTV Profit business leadership award.
Asked if the appeal by American business leader Bill Gates and 25 other billionaires there to donate half their wealth to charity was a gimmick or an example to be followed, Ambani said that circumstances in India were different.
“Within India, most of the people still do not realize that all the wealth that gets published only has paper value”, he said. “I have always believed that these shares are not to be sold. The whole objective is to build an institution that is timeless and that was my motivation, my commitment to my father." Said Mukesh Ambani.
In a nostalgic mood, Ambani recalled that his father Dhirubhai Ambani had introduced him to Pranab Mukherjee in 1980, then also Finance Minister.
At that time, Ambani said, Mukherjee had told him: "Mukesh, your father has worked very hard to build a foundation. You now have to work hard to build one of the best companies in India.
"And I (Mukesh Ambani) think thirty years from then, the satisfaction that I have is that we have built an institution… So that’s really satisfying."
In a lighter vein, he said: "I am sure the Finance Minister will not get ideas of inheritance tax. That is the main reason that most people in the US give." Mukesh Ambani received his award from Mukherjee, an NDTV statement said today.
Mr. Ambani, however, added that at an individual level, he would relate to the appeal and even in this part of the world, industrialists would need to give.
Hence with the entire hullabaloo over the wealth of the great man, it was he who was again humble enough to hear the plea of the people and then in a way promise to guide them to a much more secure future than just a placebo of wealth which would prove to be just a rainbow in the dark.
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