Ola's Bhavish Aggarwal Responds To Narayan Murthy's 'Youngsters Should Work 70 Hours A Week' Comment

Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal on Thursday said that he agrees with Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy's views that youngsters in India should work work 70 hours a week.

Murthy said that unless India's youth commit to significantly more working hours, the country will struggle to catch up with economies that have seen remarkable progress over the past few decades.

“Somehow, our youth have the habit of taking not-so-desirable habits from the West and then not helping the country,” he told TV Mohandas Pai, a former chief financial officer of the IT firm, in the first episode of ‘The Record’—a podcast by Pai’s venture capital fund, 3one4 Capital.

“India’s work productivity is one of the lowest in the world. Unless we improve our work productivity, unless we reduce corruption in the government…unless we reduce the delays in bureaucratic decision-making, we will not be able to compete with those countries that have made tremendous progress.”

“So, therefore, my request is that our youngsters must say, ‘This is my country. I want to work 70 hours a week’. This is exactly what the Germans and the Japanese did after the Second World War. They made sure every citizen worked extra hours for a certain number of years,” Murthy said.

"Totally agree with Mr Murthy’s views. It’s not our moment to work less and entertain ourselves. Rather it’s our moment to go all in and build in 1 generation what other countries have built over many generations!" Aggarwal said in a post on X.

Narayana Murthy's comments sparked a debate among users on social media.

Earlier this year, the Infosys co-founder had said that India needs a culture of honesty, no favouritism, quicker decision making and hassle-less transactions to prosper as a country.

Speaking at the Asia Economic Dialogue organised by the Ministry of External Affairs in Pune, Murthy said only a small section works hard in the country and a majority of people have not imbibed the culture which is essential to fulfil the aspirations of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"We need to build a culture of quick decision making, quick implementation, hassle less transactions, honesty in transactions, no favouritism," Murthy said, adding that the only common aspect joining all the developed countries are such cultural attributes.

He said both India and China were of the same size in the late 1940s, but the northern neighbour has grown to be six times the size of India courtesy the culture it has imbibed.

(With PTI inputs)