Industrial growth has plummeted to a 10-year low and hit an abysmal 1.3% for August. How will this impact growth? The captains of India Inc are divided on the fallout.

Y M Deosthalee, CFO, L&T said, “Very frankly we haven't seen a very significant impact. Some of our product businesses have witnessed slowdown but those are relatively small––about 8–9 per cent of our businesses is in the product area; bulk of our business is in the projects.”

Subba Rao, CFO, GMR said, “If there is an overall business slowdown, our power industry may not be affected but toll could be affected. Roads might have lower traffic because of lower economic activity. Also, there could be lower traffic in the airports, which we are already witnessing.”

Seshagiri Rao, Director–Finance, JSW Steel said, “Internationally, the liquidity problem is becoming excessively acute. Dollar is not available. Indian companies used to get dollars in the form of buyers’ credit and suppliers’ credit in the international market; that has completely disappeared. Thus, most of the companies are turning to India to increase their working capital requirements. That itself is creating a lot of pressure on the local liquidity. So a lack of working capital is one of the very important factors for lower industrial production.”