Ramesh Abhishek, The “Dhakka Start” Of Indian Start Ups

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had kickstarted the ‘Startup India’ initiative with a clear objective of creating more job opportunities in the emerging Indian economy and with a vision to create more wealth in the hands of entrepreneurs and innovators.

However, such a wonderful initiative became a victim of incompetent leadership under the former head of DPIIT, Ramesh Abhishek, who was Secretary for five years but could not do any justice to this role.

As a result, he ended up blocking the Indian startups by taking the country back to the days of the license raj. Being a conduit of corruption for former finance minister P Chidambaram’s and also Lalu Prasad Yadav’s favorite bureaucrat, Abhishek, a Bihar-cadre IAS officer, had been able to use his influence and manage to get the coveted post of Secretary of DPIIT. It’s the country’s good fortune that he has retired once and for all.

Start-up Industry has a lot of potentials but how will it be able to see long term success if people like Ramesh Abhishek sit at the top, unable to provide the desired impetus and momentum to this industry with his weak leadership?

Indeed, start-ups are very strategic to the future of India. Yet, the bureaucratic instinct to retain discretion and control has created the most perverse disincentive to invest in an Indian start-up. India needs game-changers, not corrupt power players like Ramesh Abhishek. He is out but there could be others in the system foiling Mr Modi’s vision of development for all.

Mr Modi is not afraid to make bold decisions when he is convinced that it is for the good of the country, even if it is at considerable peril to him politically. He has to weed out certain dirty elements in the bureaucracy that keep failing him on some of his signature initiatives. They must go.

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