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Realising CII’s Vision 2025

— PHOTO: BIJOY GHOSH

B. V. R. Mohan Reddy (left), Deputy Chairman, N. Kumar, Past President, and P. K. Mohapatra (right) Chairman, CII, Southern Region, at the annual regional meeting of the CII recently in Chennai.

Over the past one year, the Southern Regional Council of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has worked on a Vision statement for each of the States in the region and a common document for all of them. At its annual conclave over the last weekend, CII leaders from the south released and discussed this vision. Basically, all the States want better infrastructure, good governance, sustained as well as inclusive growth and consequently an improvement in the quality of life, and a sharp focus on education.

As the outgoing Southern Regional Council Chairman P. K. Mohapatra said, the southern States account for 25 per cent of the national GDP, and the per capita income in the region was nearing the $1,000-mark. Yet, the delegates to the conference agreed that the growth was uneven; the infrastructure bottlenecks would show up (as they already had in States such as Karnataka) if the current rate of growth continued, and the State governments need to remain focused on these core issues.

“Agriculture, education, and governance through transparency, should be the core areas of public sector intervention to achieve Vision 2025,” Mr. Mohapatra said. Each State had its areas of strength and weakness. With better synergy, interaction, and coordination, the South could really establish its lead in overall economic and social development, the delegates felt, pointing to the southern surge and the western edge over the rest of the country.

Andhra Pradesh, for instance, had focused over the past three years on agriculture and the Human Development Index. Kerala was trying to catch up for lost time in IT and ITeS, given its high social indicators and lead in the services sector. Tamil Nadu was building a modern infrastructure and attracting huge investments. It had achieved significant progress on the social indices, coming next only to Kerala. After stealing a march earlier, especially in IT and biotechnology, Karnataka had shown signs of slowing down. Puducherry was trying to become an attractive investment destination after losing its earlier advantages in the sales tax regime — thanks to the advent of Value Added Tax.

Bangalore and Hyderabad had gone in for new Greenfield airports, but the associated infrastructure to harness that asset was still taking shape. Chennai leadership as the ’Gateway to the south’ was now under challenge. Investors were still shying away from Kerala, though its IT parks were becoming major attractions. It was Karnataka’s uneven growth and regional imbalances that were causing concern to industry. But the questions arising from the discussions remained: How can industry achieve that vision? Can it influence government decision-making to remove the bottlenecks and speed up growth?

Infrastructure and education emerged as the watchwords for industry in the south. Though the States in this region fared much better than the rest of the country, they still needed to shift gears to enhance the quality of education and providing world-class infrastructure. Instead of merely encouraging the proliferation of professional colleges, the State governments should turn the focus on ensuring quality education and providing better qualified and employable engineers and professionals. Similarly, through increased budgetary allocations and the Public Private Partnership route, major infrastructure projects needed to be launched and completed on schedule.

Government representatives and senior officials from these States made it clear that private participation was imperative to make the growth inclusive and sustainable. Be it in education or infrastructure, industry had a key role to play and must come forward to participate in raising the standards. Industry leaders hoped that there could be monthly meetings between the State council leaders of the CII and the political leadership in government to not only resolve persisting problems, but also draw up an action plan and make it happen. That was the only way to realise the vision.

V. JAYANTH

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