Bibek Debroy

Kolkata : India’s small farmers and street vendors are exhibiting far more entrepreneurship than the country’s corporate sector, Bibek Debroy, Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, said here on Friday.

“Entrepreneurship cannot be taught but skills can be taught… let me tell you a small farmer exhibits far more entrepreneurship than the Indian corporate sector does. Let me remind you that the poor vendors on the streets of India are exhibiting far more entrepreneurship than the Indian corporate sector does,” he said while addressing the Sixth Convocation of IMI-Kolkata.

He said one cannot encourage entrepreneurship without encouraging failure.

“We all think of successes of entrepreneurship; 95 per cent of entrepreneurial attempts failed,” Debroy said.

Debroy, a member of NITI Aayog, also spoke of the need for the Indian education system
to facilitate or provide an enabling environment for entrepreneurship.

“…(there is a) huge question mark about whether Indian education system at all facilitates or provides enabling environment for entrepreneurship,” the economist said.

When Prime Minister talks about Start Up India and Stand Up India, it is not about the corporate sector but is about entrepreneurship, he said.

Referring to an IMF report released after India opened up the economy in 1991, he said it had suggested it would take 153 years for a country like India to halve the gap in per capita income that exists with the developed countries.

“The lesson of the last couple of decades has been that there is no need to wait for 153 years,” he said.

—IANS