LONDON: NRI industrialist Lord Swraj Paul has called for granting Indian passports to expatriates who invest a certain minimum amount in industries in India and help ignite the engine of economic growth.

"We now have a one-party government (in India), and a prime minister who appears determined to make Indian expatriates feel welcome in their homeland. Encouraging expatriate involvement could help ignite the engine of economic growth," Lord Paul said while speaking at the 14th London Global Convention on Corporate Governance and Sustainability.

In his address at the event organised here by the Institute of Directors India, he emphasised that for too long India has been burdened with an old, cosy, family-and- favourites, under-the-table style of doing and managing business.

"For the first time I now have confidence that that is going to change. Symbolic gestures are also very important. I hope the next step will be to grant expats an Indian passport. If not for all of them, then surely for those who invest a certain minimum amount of money to set up industries in India," Paul, the Chairman of the Caparo Group, said yesterday.

"It would probably be too late to be of any benefit to me, but it will certainly help and encourage the younger generation of entrepreneurs," said Paul, who was one of the first NRIs to invest in India substantially in the 1980s.

Paul highlighted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has pledged to end corruption and end the illicit flow of funds which are a "disgrace to a proud nation".

"We have a mature and very experienced President (Pranab Mukherjee), having held every important portfolio; a deeply committed Prime Minister, and a Finance Minister (Arun Jaitley) who is widely regarded as highly competent. All of them are determined to make India a fairer society, and secure for the nation its due place in the world," he said.

Noting that their efforts have generated high hopes, Paul said, "For the first time in a long while, these expectations appear to be within reach."

He stated that if these expectations are to be realised, a few basic changes are needed and India has to simplify the rules and make sure that all inward investment whether in infrastructure, business, health, education, research etc conforms to those rules.

"When it does not, it must be disallowed," Paul said. Investment that enriches itself but does little or nothing for society does nothing for India today, he said.