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Business News/ Companies / People/  Time management is boon of reforms
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Time management is boon of reforms

For Ved Naithani, prior to reforms, accessing his money to get it converted into forex was cumbersome, involving visits to RBI and waiting for 5-6 days

Ved Naithani, president, Nordipap Consultants, witnessed Gurgaon’s development, an example of the growth unleashed by liberalization. Photo: Ramesh Pathania/MintPremium
Ved Naithani, president, Nordipap Consultants, witnessed Gurgaon’s development, an example of the growth unleashed by liberalization. Photo: Ramesh Pathania/Mint

Ved Naithani, 75, however, has never been one to take conventional decisions. From quitting a government job at 21 (because he did not find it challenging enough) to taking a leap into the unknown with a job offer in Kenya in the 1970s, when the country was not even a blip on the radar of those seeking international jobs, Naithani’s career moves seemed befuddling then, but have paid off handsomely since.

“I came back to India in 1985 because I had three daughters who were growing up here. We had taken a decision early on to educate them in India even though we had better options in Kenya and as such, our coming back was inevitable," says Naithani. He came back as a consultant for a Swedish paper company. (Paper and pulp products are among main Swedish exports to India.

Naithani’s job required him to travel not just across the country but extensively across South- and South-East Asia, apart from East Africa.

“My first brush with Indian regulations was vis-a-vis foreign exchange," recalls Naithani. He used to earn in foreign currency, which was then and still is, remitted into bank accounts in Indian rupees for which the government issues Foreign Income Remittance Certificates.

Accessing his money to get it converted into foreign exchange for travelling was a cumbersome process which involved several visits to the Reserve Bank of India and a waiting period of five to six days.

“It wasn’t very frustrating at that point of time because we did not know that things could be any different. Today, however, I wonder: How did I do it? I also realized the important man-hours that were wasted in all this work that I, as a paper technocrat, could have utilized for my company. So, if you ask me what has been the biggest boon of reforms, I would say, that it has been time management," he says.

Those were the dreaded days of “control" and it applied not just to resources but even foreign exchange. An Indian citizen was allowed only up to a few hundred dollars in foreign exchange annually, with the amount duly noted in a traveller’s passport.

“So if you had exhausted your limit, you could not travel, even if you had work. I had to often forego work trips because of this reason," Naithani recalls.

FIRCs are issued even today, but there is also the liberalized remittance scheme which allows citizens to remit up to $250,000 annually in a fairly painless manner. “As for foreign exchange, well, with plastic money, there really is no need for a limit any more," laughs Naithani. But there is still a certain amount, above which declarations are required. For instance, if you are travelling to the US and carrying cash in excess of $10,000, you are required to declare it to the customs. The gift of time and efficiency are thus what he considers to be the biggest advantages of liberalization.

Naithani has also had a ring side view of the development of Gurgaon, often cited as an example of the growth unleashed by the liberalization process. His family moved to the city on the outskirts of Delhi in 1990, long before the Haryana city became a corporate hub of North India. Instead of corporate offices, luxury condominiums and swanky cars, there were fields, herds of cows and weekly shuttle services provided for women by DLF to buy groceries.

“We were a little hesitant to tell people we live in Gurgaon then; so we used to say we live south of South Delhi." The Naithanis had applied for a phone connection the year they had booked a plot with DLF in 1985. They eventually got a phone connection in 1994-95 and Naithani got his first mobile phone in 1996. “We got our daughter married without a landline. We did not give our address on the wedding card as no one would have found this place then, so we ran shuttles from AIIMS in Delhi."

Today, he admits he had no idea how they did all this. “But at that time, we had no sense of this being particularly difficult or inconvenient. It’s only now, when we live in a world where your foreign exchange comes home and everything is available at the click of a button that we look back to even two decades ago and shake our head in wonder. The opening up of the country was just in time to embrace the technological advances the world had started to make and we can see the result of it all around us now."

Today, Naithani runs his own company, Nordipap Consultancy, which deals with paper machine clothings (accessories for the paper making industry) manufactured by Albany international, a US based company, a move he says, he wouldn’t have made if the reforms hadn’t created a favourable environment.

This is the 15th part in a series marking the 25th anniversary of India’s liberalization.

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Published: 09 Feb 2016, 12:11 AM IST
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