SPEECH OF HON'BLE GOVERNOR, PUNJAB AND ADMINISTRATOR, UT, CHANDIGARH, SHRI BANWARILAL PUROHIT ON THE ON THE OCCASION OF 43RD ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION AND AWARD FUNCTION OF LUDHIANA MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION AT LUDHIANA ON DECEMBER 17, 2021

Dr. Sandeep Kapur, President LMA

Mr. Neeraj Jain, Vice President LMA

Mr. V.K. Goyal, Chairman Awards Committee

Mr. J.R. Singal, Chairman, Eastman Industries Limited

Mr Rishi Pahwa, Director Avon Cycles Limited

MS. Harpreet Kang, General Secretary LMA

Award winners,

Members of the Association,

Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen

I am pleased to be at the Anniversary celebrations of Ludhiana Management Association.

Today, on the occasion of the 43rd anniversary celebrations and award function of LMA, I congratulate all the award winners. I also congratulate the office bearers and members of LMA for organizing the function.

This function is organized at a time when at the national level, we are celebrating Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav and at the same time we are fighting a decisive battle against COVID-19. I am sure that the way we are progressing in our fight against COVID-19, we shall be in a position to win this war soon. The Award winners have done a great job during the tough times of COVID. I once again congratulate all the award winners.

I am pleased to visit the city of Ludhiana which is often called the University of Entrepreneurs. Ludhiana holds a unique position of having a large concentration of small scale industries and has the distinction of producing some of the brightest minds in the areas of business and commerce. I call upon the younger generation to emulate the hard work done by these entrepreneurs. The dedication and exemplary management skills shown by these Entrepreneurs have led them to attain recognition not only in India but all over the world.

Ladies and Gentlemen

The Economic history of India is remarkable. India had the largest and most advanced economy for most of the period between the 1st century and 18th century. We remained economically integrated with the world, with high levels of trade and investment.

Even during the Mughal Empire, our nation was the world leader in manufacturing, producing 25% of the world’s industrial output.

But, the advent of British rule changed all. The British economic policies gave them a monopoly over India’s large market and resources. For example, protectionist policies such as high tariffs on Indian textile goods, restricted our sales. Raw cotton was imported without tariffs to British factories which manufactured textiles and sold them back to India.

This kind of economic drain that was practiced resulted in India’s share of the world economy declining from 24.4% in 1700 to 4.2% at the time of independence in 1947.

The decades after Independence have witnessed the transformation of India into an economic power. The first four decades after independence saw industrialization focused on self-sufficiency and import substitution. Public Sector Units and Joint Sector units took the lead followed by private sector initiatives. The Green Revolution made India self-sufficient in food production.

Subsequently with liberalization and the process of economic reforms there has been faster economic growth with the emergence of new businesses such as IT, IT services and Telecom. The twenty-first century has seen capital and investments going beyond geographical barriers and flowing into start-ups, some of which have become Billion dollar enterprises in a few years. Consequently, first generation entrepreneurs with technological talent have developed new business models to serve global needs in both manufacturing and services sectors.

Despite pandemic posed challenges our GDP at constant prices in 2nd Quarter of 2021-22 is estimated to be Rs.35.73 lakh crore. The economic growth rates have been consistent and high making India the fastest growing major economy of the world.

I would like to draw the attention of entrepreneurs and the managers present today in this hall to various programs initiated by the Government of India. Here I would like to mention four major programmes 1. Make in India 2.Swachh Bharat Abhiyan 3.Aatm Nirbhar Bharat and 4. Digital India.

All these four programs individually throw open huge opportunities for innovative entrepreneurs to tap. Let us take the example of opportunities thrown open by the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan scheme. This scheme encourages the entrepreneurs to explore areas such as Cleaner environment, management of solid waste both at the city as well as at the rural level, cleaner air and water resources.

Having seen the havoc created by COVID-19, we are all convinced that all our enterprises need to be sustainable over a long period of time. We cannot take Mother Earth for granted for our business means. Sustainable organizations are likely to be preferred by the customer as well. The need therefore is that a sustainable ecosystem should be developed where air, water and soil resources are free from any kind of pollutants.

Similarly, other initiatives taken by the Government of India, offer substantial opportunities to be tapped. This can be made possible only if a couple of initiatives are taken like:

Creation of a Knowledge based economy-

We need to create an ecosystem that encourages development of knowledge based entrepreneurship. We also need to encourage the younger population to become job providers rather than jobseekers, primarily by creating knowledge based organisations. For this faculty at the college or university level should encourage entrepreneurship among students and we should ensure financial support with mentorship for these entrepreneurs. It is often observed that, in most cases, there exist two silos, one called the educational institutions and the others called the business/ commercial organizations. These silos have a great pool of highly talented and knowledgeable people. But they rarely exchange views or get an opportunity to sit together and discuss.

In this regard, I would like to appreciate the work done by Ludhiana Management Association in breaking these silos. I am happy to note that this association has a good mix of entrepreneurs, academicians, practicing managers and students. We need to create more such associations so that we can break the silos of knowledge and create a more robust mechanism to support learning and entrepreneurship.

I take this opportunity to call upon all the industrialists/ businessmen sitting in this hall to contribute towards strengthening the research and development efforts of the state/ central universities through contract research, donations and by participating in creating platforms to exchange ideas and knowledge.

Besides creation of a knowledge based economy, Emphasis on Education and Skilled Labour is also a must.

India is a “Young Nation”, the average age of the population of about 139 crores is 29 years and more than 3 half of the population is below the age of 25 years. This augurs well for both short term and long term growth.

At least ten million Indian youth enter the country’s workforce each year. The benefits of the demographic dividend can be realized fully when this large workforce finds gainful employment.

For this, we need to make them adequately skilled and impart a high standard of education to them. Education and skilled labour are pre-requisites for development of a sound economy.

It pains me to see that the youth from Punjab is ready to work in countries with adverse conditions like Iraq, doing odd jobs and risking lives. This trend needs to be reversed. This can be done by imparting skills required in knowledge based organizations. Both central and state governments have taken steps to impart quality knowledge/ skills to the youth so that they become skilful and employable.

I call upon all of you through LMA to participate in training youth and come forward for helping the youth, particularly from the rural areas, to attain the skills required by the industry.

Along with skill development, Innovation led growth should be ushered in.

As Dr.R.A Mashelkar, a known scientist said “I” in India must stand for innovation. New knowledge cannot be created without innovative thinking, and the process has to begin from a very young age. Students need to be trained to think creatively and to strive for improvement by finding new solutions. Recently a lot of dynamism has been seen in the Startup businesses throughout the country. Innovative approaches and new ways of handling problems, have led to the success of these entrepreneurs. I am extremely happy to note that one such award is also instituted by LMA for the young innovative entrepreneur, which recognises the innovative practices followed by young entrepreneurs.

We as a nation are blessed to have a strong base of traditional knowledge. This knowledge is vital for sustainability of natural resources including forests, water, and agro-ecosystems across the landscape continuum. Traditional knowledge, combined with formal education, has the capacity to create an entirely new set of products and services which can have a far reaching impact on our lives.

Here I would like to specially mention the efforts of Prof. Anil Gupta, Professor at IIM, Ahmedabad, who has done pioneering work by creating Grass-root Innovation Augmentation Network (GIAN) - an organisation that helps Grass-root innovators protect and commercialise their inventions. We need more such organisations and must celebrate innovation by instituting various awards, so vital for creating knowledge based economies.

A shift towards knowledge based economies helps in creating competitiveness at global level. The definition of competition has undergone a sea change. Today, entrepreneurs from Ludhiana do not compete with their counterparts from India; they compete with entrepreneurs from all over the world. The distinction between domestic and export markets is becoming blurred. The international market is here in Ludhiana, where we can get products made from all over the world. But the question is, are our entrepreneurs ready to face this competition? Will they survive in these challenging times? The answer to these questions lies in shifting towards a knowledge economy.

This is the responsibility of all of us and I hope everyone will contribute towards this end.

Thank You ,

Jai Hind.