CII Communique - December, 2010
CII Communique - December, 2010
CII Communique - December, 2010
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india & the world<br />
Ben J. Verwaayen, CEO, Alcatel-Lucent, France; Arvind Mayaram, Additional Secretary & Financial Adviser, Ministry of Rural Development,<br />
India, Ellen Kullman; Om Prakash Bhatt, Chairman, SBI, India; Elisabeth Comstock, Senior Vice-President and Chief Marketing Officer, General<br />
Electric Company, USA; Sriram Raghavan, CEO, Comat Technologies, India; and Nik Gowing, Main Presenter, BBC World News, UK<br />
that need to be addressed, including poor infrastructure<br />
and redundant labour laws. Mr Jim Quigley, Global<br />
Chief Executive Officer, Deloitte, USA, felt that India<br />
maintained an edge with respect to other Asian countries.<br />
Mr Pradeep K Dhoot, President and Vice Chairman,<br />
Videocon Industries, India; called for making the ‘Made in<br />
India’ brand synonymous with quality and durability.<br />
Speaking on ‘Actions for Modernizing India’s Agriculture<br />
Sector’, Mr Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Chief Minister<br />
of Haryana, said that declining farm output can be<br />
attributed to fragmented land holdings, degradation of<br />
soil, imbalanced use of fertilizers, inadequate availability<br />
of quality seeds, poor mechanization, depletion of water<br />
resources, knowledge gap and poor dissemination of<br />
technology. There appears to be a technology fatigue<br />
and the link between the laboratory and the field is weak.<br />
In order to meet the technological gap, there is a need<br />
for greater need public private partnership, he said.<br />
According to Dr Ashok Gulati, Director, Asia, International<br />
Food Policy and Research Institute, India needs to use<br />
resources to invest in rural infrastructure such as roads,<br />
which would be 8 to 10 times more productive than<br />
giving subsidy in the form of free power. Dr Robert N.<br />
Subbaraman, Chief Economist, Nomura International,<br />
Hong Kong, felt that the<br />
rise in food prices is a<br />
structural issue, and supply<br />
side bottlenecks need to be<br />
addressed.<br />
Mr Chengal Reddy, Co-<br />
Chairman, Indian Farmers<br />
and Industry Alliance, said<br />
the potential of Indian<br />
agriculture can only be<br />
realized if there is greater<br />
p a r t n e r s h i p b e t w e e n<br />
David Tweed, International Economics Editor, Bloomberg Television;<br />
Sunil Bharti Mittal; Rajat M. Nag, Managing Director-General,<br />
Asian Development Bank, Manila; and Hari S Bhartia<br />
industry and the farm sector. Mr Raj Jain, President<br />
and CEO, Wal-Mart India, and Mr Jerry Steiner, Executive<br />
Vice President, Monsanto Company, USA, were of the<br />
view that the Indian agriculture sector has great potential;<br />
however, restrictive legislation inhibits a partnership of<br />
government and corporate sector.<br />
Using the available sources of energy more frugally and<br />
reducing wastage is the key to address the challenge<br />
of energy scarcity and ensure its widespread availability.<br />
This was the main takeaway from the plenary session<br />
on ‘Empowering the Underpowered: Actions for Energy<br />
Infrastructure’. The panelists were of the view that<br />
information technology could help and that off-grid<br />
solutions and proper pricing could promote energy<br />
efficiency. To ensure availability, there is a need to reduce<br />
the waste in the use of energy resources.<br />
Technology can also play a key role in encouraging rural<br />
entrepreneurship and generating greater employment in<br />
rural areas, stressed the session on ‘Innovating Rural<br />
Entrepreneurship towards Employment’. Mr. O P Bhatt,<br />
Chairman, State Bank of India, said that the private sector,<br />
the government, the banks and the non-bank institutions<br />
must work together to achieve greater benefits for the<br />
poor.<br />
Mr. Arvind Mayaram,<br />
Additional Secretary and<br />
Financial Adviser, Ministry<br />
of Rural Development,<br />
India, expressed the need<br />
for greater Public Private<br />
Partnership to develop<br />
entrepreneurship in rural<br />
areas. The government<br />
has been taking several<br />
initiatives, which include<br />
plans for connecting all the<br />
12 | <strong>December</strong> <strong>2010</strong> Communiqué