CEA Nageswaran: Public sector must take 50-year view on India's needs

Private companies suffer from "a disease of incentives" that pushes them toward short horizons, Nageswaran said. A public enterprise is not run with quarterly results in mind. "It can take on projects that gestate over 15 years and pay back over 50 years."

He called on the public sector to apply that long horizon to a new set of problems: resource and energy security, including acceleration of nuclear energy; research and development; nurturing small and medium enterprises; and compressing their own decision-making timelines. The public sector must invest in capabilities that will mature long after one's own tenure has ended, he said.

H Shankar, Managing Director of Chennai Petroleum Corporation Ltd (CPCL), spoke at the same event about the company's reinvention, including its recent entry into retail fuel marketing. "It is a milestone moment; it required a lot of courage to step into unfamiliar territory," he said.

The CPCL-MMA lecture series aims to create a platform for policymakers, industry leaders, management professionals, academia, and young executives to discuss leadership, governance, sustainability, and institution building in the public sector.