The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Professionals have social responsibility: Maran

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Feb 04, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Professionals have social responsibility: Maran

Staff Reporter

"Greater momentum of growth in food production needed"

MEMENTO PRESENTED: Governor Surjit Singh Barnala with Joerg Wolff, Resident Representative of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in India, at the MMA golden jubilee convention in Chennai on Friday. Union Minister of Communications and Information Techno logy Dayanidhi Maran and MMA president D. P. Padmanabhan look on. — Photo: Vino John

CHENNAI: The golden jubilee convention of the Madras Management Association (MMA) began here on Friday with Union Minister of Communications and Information Technology Dayanidhi Maran and the Governor Surjit Singh Barnala urging the professionals to strive towards broadbasing the growth.

Cautioning them against developing complacency, in the backdrop of India's robust growth rate, Mr. Barnala said the growing population called for a greater momentum of growth in food production and other range of goods.

"The climbing graphs of production must intertwine with the living and working conditions of our masses. Our socio-economic system must as a whole find ways of reaching the poor people," he told the inaugural session.

Hailing MMA for the "excellent work in propagating the message of professional management in all facets of business ... " the Governor said the convention theme `this India knows no boundaries' is apt and chosen at a time when India was witnessing unprecedented growth. Mr. Barnala presented a memento to Joerg Wolff, resident representative in India of Konrad Adenauer Foundation of Germany, which has a partnership arrangement with MMA.

Mr. Maran, inaugurating the two-day convention, underscored the need for the management professionals to have a social responsibility towards the underprivileged sections of society. "We must not lose sight of the reality ... India is still an economy in transition. One third of our population is still mired in abject poverty."

The growth of the manufacturing sector, he pointed out, was important for development. "India cannot skip the manufacturing ... and go from being an agrarian society directly to becoming a services and knowledge-based society. A substantial manufacturing base is essential to absorb the workforce and ensure sustainable growth of the economy."

Noting that the new management culture was piloting the resurgence in the manufacturing sector, the Union Minister called for initiatives to increase the share of manufacturing in the national income. The share that went up marginally from 15.58 per cent in 1991 to 17 per cent in 2003 should be "somewhere in the range of 25 to 35 per cent. This requires manufacturing to keep growing annually at 12 to 14 per cent in the next decade."

The MMA president D.P. Padmanabhan detailed the growth of the asociation from the days when management education itself was nascent to the present times in which entrepreneurs from India were not restricting their operations within the country, but looking for growth opportunities worldwide.

The convention committee chairman and senior vice-president of the asociation C.K. Ranganathan said captains of industry and leading academicians and management consultants were scheduled to address the sessions.

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