Candid Tata

"When you asked whether I’d ever been in love, I came seriously close to getting married four times and each time it got close to there and I guess I backed off in fear of one reason or another,” the very private Ratan Tata provided a peek into his personal life in a candid conversation with an interviewer on CNN Inter-national’s Talk Asia program. Parts of the interview were reproduced in The Indian Express and other leading Indian publications on April 14, 2011.

The time he was the most serious, said Tata, was in the early 1960s when he was due to return to India after working in the US. The lady was to follow him shortly thereafter. Unfortunately, the Indo-Chinese conflict broke out (in 1962) and though it was confined to the "snowy, uninhabited part of the Himalayas, (it) was seen in the US as a major war between India and China and so she didn’t come and finally got married in the US thereafter.” The reasons on the other occasions were different. "But in hindsight when I look at the people involved, it wasn’t a bad thing what I did. I think it may have been more complex had the marriage taken place,” the chairman of the $ 70 billion Tata Group elaborated.

Now 73, Tata is slated to hang up his boots next December on turning 75. Finding a successor is proving to be a tough task for the selection panel appointed last August, with the tentative March 2011 deadline having come and gone! The panel may have to reset the parameters, Tata Sons director R. K. Krishna Kumar, who is on the search panel, told the media. "My step-brother (Noel Tata) is one of the candidates that is being considered and I don’t think it’s my lot to say whether it’s 50 percent or 90 percent or 10 percent…” Tata told the CNN interviewer on the subject of Noel’s chances of being selected his successor.

With waves of wrath sweeping over the country and the 2G spectrum scam and the leaked Niira Radia tapes proving to be a combustible cocktail for India Incorporated, Ratan Tata himself was summoned by the PAC (Public Accounts Committee) of Parliament to answer questions. He gave a three-hour deposition before it on April 4, 2011. "Tata was candid, Radia evasive on 2G,” PAC chief Murli Manohar Joshi told the media soon thereafter. Anil Ambani of Reliance ADAG (Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group), representatives of Swan Telecom, Unitech, and others were also questioned on the next day by the PAC which, however, finds itself in conflict with the JPC (Joint Parliamentary Committee, set up at the insistence of the Opposition in Parliament) which is also to probe aspects of the 2G scandal.

Ratan Tata: on air at CNN

The scam consists mainly of former telecom minister A. Raja and a host of others being accused of under-pricing the handing out of 2G spectrum in 2008 and the illegitimate manipulation of the process of allocation in favor of particular companies. With a plethora of probing agencies –the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation which has arrested Raja, as well as the former telecom secretary and several top company leaders), the ED (Enforcement Directorate), the Income-Tax authorities, Department of Revenue Intelligence, etc — and a multiplicity of ministries and government departments in the firing line, getting at the truth is proving to be as hard as looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack. The figures of loss to the exchequer have swung wildly from the initial Rs 1.76 lakh crore to the now-stated Rs 30,984.55 crore loss calculated by the CBI.

In the meanwhile, following Tata’s ‘right to privacy’ petition filed in the Supreme Court late last year (see "Protecting privacy,” Business, Parsiana, February 7, 2011), his subsequent affidavits and pleas of February and March and the flurry of allegations against individuals and companies hurled thick and fast in the media, the Government of India has sought to bring in a semblance of restraint. In April it set up a 15-member inter-ministerial group to frame standard operating procedures for phone tapping and for the destruction by the intercepting agencies of non-relevant, private taped conversations. The group seeks also to put in place a system to check the leaks of tapped material.

Yet, despite the corruption and the controversies, Ratan Tata told his CNN interviewer that he wished he were 20 years younger "because I think India is going through a very exciting period in its history.” Queried as to whether he would like to stay on, he instantly replied in the negative, clarifying he only wished he were younger (for his own growth). The Tata Group is looking at ambitiously doubling its revenues in the next five years from the present $ 70 billion to around $ 150 billion (around Rs 6.64 lakh crore) by investing up to Rs 1.2 lakh crore in the domestic market, as per a press announcement on April 17 by Kishor Chaukar, MD, Tata Industries. The power, steel, automobile and telecommunication sectors would be the main drivers of growth.

With Tata Motors known to have a special place in chairman Ratan’s heart, the company is forging ahead with technology for fuel and emission-efficient engines. In March it showcased at the Geneva Motor Show its plug-in hybrid Land Rover sports utility vehicle. This development model is equipped with an advanced plug-in hybrid diesel-electric power train that Land Rover expects to make available in future production models. The Tata Indica Vista Electric Vehicle was also displayed at the Motor Show’s Green Pavilion. The Tata Pixel, a new city car concept for Europe (based on the Nano), was also unveiled. Circulating on the Internet are pictures of an air powered car that Tata Motors is reportedly set to introduce in India, though this could not be confirmed. Known as MiniCAT (Compressed Air Technology), the car uses compressed air to drive its engine pistons, with zero emissions and a mileage about double that of the electric car. The cost of the car would be substantially higher than fuel-driven vehicles but that would be compensated for by the lower running costs and environmental friendliness.