Centre's decision to rationalise GST is positive: Subrahmanyan

With the government promising major reforms, including goods & services tax rationalisation, corporate India is preparing for large-scale investment, says Larsen & Toubro (L&T) Chairman and Managing Director S N Subrahmanyan. In an interview with Dev Chatterjee and Vishal Chhabria in Mumbai, he says the business environment in the country has turned positive. Edited excerpts:

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What's your view on the GST reforms?

■ GST is one of the most significant reforms in India. It brought in the concept of "one nation, one tax", simplifying compliance and making interpretation easier. Disputes are now minimal.

That said, after five or six years, it is natural to review the system and make rationalisation based on feedback.

The government's decision to revisit GST is positive.

The attempt is to keep the atmosphere positive and to keep the business atmosphere in a forward-looking lane. And then it is for the business to see where they garner the resources from. At L&T we appreciate this effort.

Are you witnessing private-sector capex picking up? And, are you getting enough orders from the private sector?

■ L&T has three main businesses: Projects, manufacturing, and services. Projects include construction, hydrocarbons, and energy; manufacturing covers heavy and precision engineering; and services include L&T Mindtree, LTTS, L&T Finance, and L&T Realty.

During the pandemic, private capex was almost zero and our orders came largely from government and multilateral projects. Today, private investment is returning strongly. We see demand in electronics, power, steel, automobiles, paints, and chemicals. Companies into smaller consumer products and chemicals too are investing. Private-sector projects are once again playing a meaningful role in our backlog and pipeline, which is encouraging for growth.

There is a reasonable number of private-sector projects in the backlog or in the pipeline as we see today. So, I am confident that the private sector will play a part in our overall pie and that is how it will move on from the moment we see it.