MUMBAI: India Inc on Sunday urged the government to speed up stalled economic reforms, warning that policy paralysis threatened to derail the India growth story.

Speaking at the opening session of the annual India Economic Summit of the World Economic Forum (WEF), Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani called upon both the central and state governments to “align and move a lot faster”, remove the mismatch prevailing in their approaches, and speed up the decision making process.

He also called for a dramatic shift in the governance model for better partnership between the government and the private sector in delivering more value to each other, and the society at large. “There is a need for a shift in governance from 20th century to 21st century decision making… We need to get a minimum agreement in terms of saying that at the end of the day we are there working for all people and we have to have a pathway to move into the 21st century governance so that the rules are redefined and we can meet the aspirations of the millions of our young people,” he said.

Speaking about decisions being stalled due to political constraints, he said, “I think there is a mismatch. We are both heading to the same direction and sometimes, like you have seen in the US and Europe, that’s the price of democracy, but we shouldn’t put a thing by saying that because the institutions of democracy are there, we will be paralyzed. And because there is an opposition and a party in power, we would do nothing. That’s what worries me,” he said, while urging for a minimum agreement to deliver on the expectations of the people.

Other businessmen, investors and experts that TOI spoke to similarly expressed frustration over the policy paralysis that has set in after a series of scandals dented the government’s ability to push ahead measures needed to sustain growth. There was near unanimity that political parties should rise over partisan issues and approve key legislations which would help boost confidence.

“There is nothing moving in the government. The opposition parties should rise above partisan issues and enable policies to move ahead,” said Ashok P Hinduja, chairman, Hinduja Group India.

The Manmohan Singh-led UPA government has faced criticism for soft pedalling on reforms and putting key policy issues on the backburner. The political logjam over the issue of corruption has led to legislative backlog. Key bills have been pending in Parliament, adding to the frustration of investors.

“In the last six to eight months, nothing has moved due to corruption issues. We need political parties to forge a consensus to enable things to move,” said Sanjiv Bajaj, managing director of Bajaj Finserv.

Some investors said the intention of the government was clear but lack of consensus was holding back progress. Analysts say lack of reforms will hurt growth and emerge as an obstacle to India’s ambitions to emerge as a global power.

“The intention is very clear that it (the government) wants to move ahead (with reforms). But finding a common ground is where difficulties come. It is because of coalition and conflicting agenda (of political parties that are part of the coalition,” said Jamshyd Godrej, chairman and managing director of Godrej and Boyce Manufacturing Co Ltd. He is also one of the 14 industry chiefs who has been writing to the government.

“It’s almost becoming impossible to do business in India,” said Niranjan Hiranandani, managing director, Hiranandani Constructions.

But he said the Urban Renewal Mission was one of the best policies which had put the focus back on urban areas. “For a long time, policy focus was on rural areas since a large number of MPs come from the rural areas. But with increasing urbanization, the focus has now slightly shifted to development of the urban areas,” Hiranandani said.

But some experts said they did not subscribe to the view of policy paralysis but were concerned by the slow implementation of policies.

“I don’t think there is any policy paralysis but implementation of policies is a very difficult issue,” said Rajat Nag, managing director general at the Asian Development Bank.

The government has lined up an ambitious agenda of reforms in the forthcoming winter session of Parliament but experts said they were not optimistic about any major progress due to the current political environment.

“If the government is able to make some progress either through the legislative agenda or through direct investment in infrastructure, it will make a difference. In the short term, there will be some bumps but I remain optimistic about India in the medium term,” said Srivatsan Rajan, managing director, Bain and Company.