'No One Can Demand Long Hours At Work': Narayana Murthy Says It's For Everybody To 'Introspect'

Speaking at the Kilachand Memorial Lecture in Mumbai, Murthy said that nobody should be able to dictate long work hours. "I can say that I used to get to the office at 6.20 am and I used to leave at 8.30 pm. That's a fact, I have done it. Nobody can say no, that's wrong. I have done it for 40-odd years. I think these are not issues that should be discussed and debated. These are issues that one can introspect on, one can ingest and one can come to some conclusion and do whatever they want. That's all to it. There's nobody who can say, you should do it, you should not do it, no," he said

During a podcast in October 2023, the 78-year-old former tech boss had pushed for India's young workforce to spend more hours at work to help the country realise its full potential globally.

"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. So therefore, my request is that our youngsters must say 'this is my country. I'd like to work 70 hours a week," he had said.