The Hindu : Business : CII stress on sustainable development

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 01, 2005

Business

Business

CII stress on sustainable development

Special Correspondent

Focus on employment intensive sectors

SETTING NEW AGENDA: The President of Confederation of Indian Industry, Y. C. Deveshwar, with the Vice President, R. Seshasayee (left), and the Director General, N. Srinivasan (right), at his first press conference after assuming charge in New Delhi on Tuesday. — Photo: Sandeep Saxena

NEW DELHI: The new chief of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Y. C. Deveshwar, on Tuesday predicted 7.2 per cent growth in gross domestic product (GDP) for the current fiscal even as he stressed the need for sustainable development for alleviating poverty and generating employment.

"India needs high rate of sustained growth to alleviate poverty, increase living standards and reduce differentiation. To achieve this we need to look at our growth with an eye on long term sustainability," Mr. Deveshwar, who recently took charge of the apex industry organisation, said at his first media meet, spelling out agenda of the body under his stewardship.

He said in the current fiscal CII expected India to grow at 7.2 per cent, with the agriculture sector projected to achieve three per cent growth, and industry and services 8.1 per cent and 8.3 per cent respectively.

"Sustainability would be the new dimension of CII's work on competitiveness across all sectors, including agriculture, manufacturing and services," he said asserting that the CII would engage the government and other stakeholders to develop a strategic approach for achieving high rates of growth with sustainability of natural and social capital.

CII's focus on sustainable development would be on employment and employability, rural economy, infrastructure, nurturing and renewing social capital and governance, he added.

Commenting on employment generation, Mr. Deveshwar said while focussing on sectors which were employment intensive was necessary, it was equally imperative to focus on sectors which were not employment intensive by themselves but with their forward and backward linkages were employment intensive.

CII had identified textiles and garments; leather and leather products; food processing; tourism paper; knowledge-based industries; and gems and jewellery as employment intensive sectors.

The industry body would also work towards strengthening employability of human resources through organisational initiatives such as upgrading ITIs and skills development programmes for students after Class VIII across the country.

For facilitating development of the rural economy, he said the focus would be on improving farm productivity through strengthening of extension services, greater use of IT, improving and expanding irrigation networks and promoting market-led crop diversification.

Calling for freeing the farm produce market, he said the implementation of the revised APMC Act should be facilitated in states.

Similarly a quick enactment of a unified food law was important to develop the food-processing industry.

He said the CII's priorities for the year would encompass issues such as having a common single market, including moving to a uniform goods and service tax; tax moderation, reforms and widening of tax base, rationalising of import tariff structure to encourage value addition within the country.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Business