Indian business rarely does exactly what the government wants it to. For the past decade or so, for example, it has obdurately refused to invest as much as officials think it should.
Last week, chief economic adviser V. Anantha Nageswaran said that profits for the 500 largest publicly traded companies had grown by over 30% a year since the pandemic, ¡°but still, our overall capital formation rates from the private sector have been disappointing.¡±
Nageswaran isn¡¯t the only one complaining. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman publicly wonders every few months why corporations seem so unwilling to invest. She has repeatedly pointed out that she¡¯s lowered taxes, cleaned up banks¡¯ balance sheets, tried to support consumer demand, spent public money on infrastructure ¡ª yet is puzzled why companies haven¡¯t responded.
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