No country has beaten poverty with freebies: Narayana Murthy at Mumbai event

NEW DELHI: Infosys Co-Founder N R Narayana Murthy emphasiSed that job creation by innovative entrepreneurs, rather than freebies, is the key to eliminating poverty.

Speaking at the Tiecon Mumbai 2025 event, he urged entrepreneurs to focus on building businesses that generate employment.

Murthy stated that poverty would "vanish like dew on a sunny morning" if India fosters innovative enterprises. "I have no doubt that each of you will create hundreds of thousands of jobs and that is how you solve the problem of poverty, you don't solve the problem of poverty by freebies, no country has succeeded in that," he told the gathering of entrepreneurs.

His remarks come at a time when India provides monthly cash transfers to 80 crore people, fueling an ongoing debate on the sustainability of freebies.

Murthy later clarified that he is not well-versed in politics or governance but offered insights from a policy perspective. He suggested that benefits should come with some form of accountability.

Citing the example of free electricity of up to 200 units per month, he proposed that the government conduct random surveys after six months to assess whether children in such households are studying more or if parental involvement in their education has increased.

On artificial intelligence, Murthy remarked that many AI solutions being marketed today are merely "silly, old programmes" presented as cutting-edge innovations. He explained that AI primarily comprises machine learning and deep learning capabilities.