MUMBAI: India’s biggest conglomerates, which wield immense pricing power in the retail, resources and telecommunication sectors, are contributing to elevated inflation and should be broken up, a former central banker said.
The “Big 5” consisting of Reliance Group, Tata Group, Aditya Birla Group, Adani Group and Bharti Telecom have grown at the expense of smaller local firms, said Viral Acharya who was Reserve Bank of India deputy governor between 2017 and 2019. At the same time, the government’s “sky-high tariffs” have shielded these conglomerates from competition by foreign firms.
