N. Murthy on business environment
From Address by Shri Narayana Murthy · · ManagementCanvas
“The government was extremely business unfriendly. It took us three years to get a license for a computer. It would take 15 days of Bank of India to permit us to go abroad. It would take three years to get a telephone line.”
On , N. Murthy, Co-Founder at Infosys, spoke about business environment during Address by Shri Narayana Murthy on ManagementCanvas.
About N. Murthy
N. R. Narayana Murthy, co-founder of Infosys, participated in two public events in March and April 2026. Speaking at the Cochin Chamber of Commerce & Industry's India Forward Talk Series, Murthy expressed frustration with India being described as an "emerging country" for the past 60 years. He argued that the idea of cheap labor as India's competitive edge is "totally wrong" and "a trap." Murthy also stated that "private excellence cannot survive in public squalor," emphasizing that isolated prosperity is insufficient without broader public infrastructure and governance. In an interview with the Hult Prize at St. Xavier's College, Kolkata, Murthy described capitalism as "unleashing the power of human enterprise in an environment of free markets" with the government acting as a "fair, impartial, data- and fact-based regulator, not as a player." He called for policies that reduce bureaucratic delays and corruption so entrepreneurs can focus on building their enterprises. Murthy also urged the younger generation to work toward making India a "more equitable" and "fairer society," stating that the job of nation-building is "nowhere near complete."