Socialist governments created obstacles to the growth of the Tata group
Excerpts from Shashank Shah’s The Tata Group: From Torchbearers to Trailblazers. Reproduced with permission from Penguin Random House India.
Tata Steel embarked on a transformative journey around the time the Indian economy was liberalized. Right-sizing the labor force was a vital element of this exercise. After taking over as the chairman of Tata Steel in 1993, when Ratan Tata enquired about the size of the workforce, he was met with a stony silence. A few months later, the number 80,000 emerged. Dr Jamshed Irani recalled the reason for the massive labor force at Tata Steel. "The Tatas never gave any money......