Ex-Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai who supported Narayana Murthy's advice of 70-hour work per week cited 2019 data that Indians work 61.6 hours per week.
Amid intense debate over Infosys founder Narayan Murthy's 70-hour work week comment with many pointing out the unreasonability of it, TV Mohandas Pai, the ex-CFO of Infosys, cited data of how many hours urban men work in each state and said Narayana Murthy's advice was for youngsters, people below 30. "Prosperity needs hard work, data shows," Mohandas Pai wrote lending support to the 70-hour-week advice. According to the map that Mohandas Pai shared the average working hours in India is 61.6 per week while Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu clocked in the highest with 78.6 hours -- more than what Narayan Murthy recommended. The source of the data is from Time Use Survey (2019), done by the government of India.
In a podcast hosted by Mohandas Pai, Narayana Murthy said India needs to increase its productivity. “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 at some level, because we have been reading, I don't know the truth of it, unless we reduce the delays in our bureaucracy in taking this decision, we will not be able to compete with those countries that have made tremendous progress," Murthy said. So's 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 Japanese did after the Second World War," Narayana Murthy said.
The comment drew massive flak on social media on two aspects -- people questioned the salary Infosys itself offers to the freshers and how it has not changed over the years and the healthA Bengaluru-based cardiologist, Dr Krishnamurthy linked it with the increase in the number of young people getting heartattacks and showed that 70 hours work per week will leave an individual with no time for socialising, family, exercise. "Then wonder why young people are getting heart attacks?" the cardiologist said.
