Should businessmen run the finance ministry?

Running a Finance Ministry is totally different than running a Business. Finance Ministry in India has always a larger perspectives and objectives, where businessman has narrow perspective - earning money or fame.

Businessman normally invest with an objective of return - Take decision based on ROE, NPV or Payback. Finance ministry can not take decision based on this value.

Government is spending few % of budget only for education, health, employment, welfare of women, etc, where no return is expected accept betterment of society. I don't know any businessman will invest even Rs 1 for this cause without any personal interest or purpose. FM is also taking care of weaker section of society, where business person always take care stronger section of society.

By all above, I am opine that BM should do business and FM should run ministry.

Finance ministry & Businessman are two sides of a coin. Where a Businessman's first movie is to get more profit from his organization on another side finance ministry has to manage whole contrary people without thinking any type of profit or earnings.

According to me a businessman should never run the finance ministry! The basic aim of both of them may be the same i.e., profit. But in the case of businessman, he is concerned only with profit and never consider the common people and their welfare.

India always lacks the presence of educated people to head our various departments. Hence if an educated person can run the ministry, then its good. But the ultimate aim should be the economic welfare of people. The decisions taken by a minister affects the entire nation and the people relying on the government. IN business the profit or loss affects only that particular firm. So my personal opinion is that one who is experienced in various fields of a democracy should run the ministry so that economic and social inequalities do not occur.

No, then that day would be the starting day of the decline of a country.

Businessmen are very much self-oriented people, they drive their business just for one reason that they will be the having most of the share of the money earned.

Whereas in Finance ministry they won't get that massive share of the total profit, instead they will be given a monthly salary, which for any Businessmen would be less than sufficient.

Besides this would pave way for corruption, as they would try any means to get some share of the profit made, hence making GOI unstable.

Sorry, I am not agree with this idea. A businessman won't be able to understand whole.

Idea of finance ministry. He just know that how to make profit from the things. He won't concern about the poor people. Government has a very important role to make every person equal in financial manner, but a businessman finance minister will lead to inequality.

I think we should think about a person who is good in economics as a finance minister.

The aim of a good businessman is to earn higher profits and increase his organization's reputation. However the finance ministry is responsible for flow of money in the country market. It does not earn for itself rather it aims for good foreign relations so that Indian sellers can earn more. I think a very educated person (whether he is businessman or not) should be a finance minister.

Good topic,

Businessman can work as a finance minister because if he is in business he should has good knowledge about economics. Profit should important for government sectors like banks, oil, power, telecom. If profit increases these sectors government automatically can rise subsidies on agricultural, power, education, health&oil so profit indirectly help to down the inflation.

It will lead to India GDP growth.

If the businessman man who become rich from poor should be finance minister.

Good Topic!

To start off, Lets just not generalize this to particular business man/business house. If at all, a business man was to sit in finance "ministry", we would expect the person to not only have a strong foundation in Macro and Micro economics, but also has on a broad level, understanding of the political implications of the decisions. Since the ministry deals the fiscal measures, a person with business back ground would have a strong understanding of financial elements like Balance Sheet, Deficits, accruals and consolidations.

Given the candidature, we could decide upon who is good in taking up.

In my opinion though, I would rather go for a person who has some grounding in Economics, like an efficient businessman, than go for a a person who acts just as a rubber stamp for any postulations made by the advisory council in the ministry.

I don't think so that a businessman should run the ministry. Minister is a person who thinks can think about common men but when it comes about an individual he can only think about its profit. Minister is a person who can lead consumers to right source it all negative in case of businessman. But unfortunately India is lacking that also.

Talking about India, the economic reforms over past 15-20 years, have been characterized by a crony mechanism. We have witnessed many scandals and putting a businessman in such scenario would no doubt aggravate the problem.

Finance ministry is interlinked with other departments. Its main motive is the generalization of resources for social upliftment of people and thus we can conclude that its first priority is 'Common Man' whereas, Businessman works on Profit mechanism only without considering the ethics and values.

Thus, BUSINESSMEN SHOULD NOT RUN FINANCE MINISTRY. !