Chapter 12B: in early 2000, the Rothschild Asia Pac chief made a casual remark over dinner, “BSNL will not last, sell it while the going is good”. And to the minister, he had said, “Sir, your future revenue is spectrum sale, forget about BSNL. That is going to be a cost centre”.
For 25 years these words have haunted me. It hasn’t helped that his prediction played out accurately. The question haunting me today is, “will SBI, PNB and BoB go the way of BSNL”. Or will they go the way United India, New India and Oriental Insurance are going as we speak. Unable to compete. A much larger question is around the future of our country and the role of foreign entities in critical sectors.
And my conclusion is that if we don’t break up the Citi HDFC Axis Cibil cartel immediately – the country and its people may not live to regret it. And this is a very strong statement. The immediacy of this need is not appreciated and I hope to churn the pot to help people understand the gravity of what has happened.
It takes not more than five people and maybe three companies to bring an economy to its knees. I think the three conglomerates – Tatas, Citi ecosystem and L&T are that threesome. Given their track record and impressive credentials – they can even be the torchbearers for India’s century.
Tatas have found an able leader in Noel Tata. The foreign hand has been eliminated. The govt support is adequate if not strong. They cannot survive without financial aid. Air India purchase was a mistake but they will lose far less money then the govt would have lost. The govt has to come to their help. The Tamilian Mahasabha will need to be smoothly defanged to restore cultural diversity. It is better that Noel’s son be in management rather than the next gen of the old GEC. Cyrus Mistry is the man who saved Tatas from certain disaster.
L&T is India’s marquee heavy engineering company. The foreign hand is yet to be eliminated. The Tamilian Mahasabha controls the top chair and the CFO role. Reserves are being frittered in unrelated diversifications. Third rate engineers are doing projects delivering fourth rate quality. Past glory cannot make better buildings. It is easy to destroy an ecosystem built over decades in heavy engineering. The only option here is to split the company into engineering, construction and others. The sooner this is done the better.
In the case of CIBIL, it is critical that all foreign ownership and control be eliminated. Cibil was founded as a 50:50 Jv between SBI and HDFC. Transunion took a 10% stake as technology provider. India doesn’t need technology to run a database. How and why Trans Union owns 90%+ of Cibil is a case study of what not to do. It is about as much of a mistake as it is to host digilocker in Google data centres.
To understand how history can be manufactured by sponsored narratives of Citibank, read the book on Deepak Parekh by two very eminent authors.
When the book is all lies – the authors better be creditable.
