Centre should come out with an attractive scheme for Non-Resident Indians, to invest their savings in the country, a leading NRI banker has said. R Seetharaman, Chief Executive officer, Doha bank, Group, Qatar, who was in India in connection with the Seventh Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, told PTI that NRIs had a lot of money at their disposal to invest in bonds and mutual funds in the country.The current interest rate in the country was insufficient to attract these investments and the Centre should come out with a new scheme for them, he said.
The scheme could be on the lines of resurgent bonds issued by the State Bank of India in the early nineties, which carried more interest, he said. On the effect of global meltdown on Indian economy, he said the country's economy was 'insulated' from global economy but not 'isolated'. Though there would be some impact of the meltdown, it could not seriously affect the economy, he said. Indian economy was basically domestic oriented than export oriented and hence there would not be much effect, he added.
NRIs had lot of scope in invest in infrastructure like roads, telecommunication and agriculture besides education. This would help in increasing the per capita income of rural masses, he said. On Satyam fiasco and its impact on IT industry in the country, he said Satyam was an isolated incident and it would not have any impact on the IT industry. 'It is an aberration ....cannot do anything', Seetharaman said.
