Delivered Extempore
ADDRESS BY SHRI K.R.NARAYANAN, VICE PRESIDENT OF INDIA, AT THE B.Y.S.T. FUNCTION
AUGUST 7, 1993
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Irani, Mr. Godrej, Hon'ble Minister, Shri Arunachalam, Mr. John Pervin, Mr. Tarun Das and Mrs. Lakshmi Venketesan and friends,
I am very delighted to be at this inaugural Seminar on a very important subject, a new subject in fact. First of all, I want to congratulate Mrs. Laxmi Venketesan for a very creative effort she has initiated in the field of business, interacting with youth for creating entrepreneurship and employment among youth in this country. It is a very important initiative and I am happy that Indian industry and business have come forward to help this new venture. The subject of this Seminar, "Business for Social Action" is something that is very urgently required for consideration and implementation today in India, in fact, all over the world when the private enterprise is coming more and more not only into economics and industry which is a traditional field, but into general human development itself. While the State is withdrawing progressively from industry and economic management, it is essential that the lacuna that is being created in social action should be filled by industry and business, otherwise we will get a vacuum in a very critical field in our society and in our economic field.
Traditionally, I know that Indian business, particularly some of the big industrial business, have taken interest not only in making profits but in adding something to society and to social development. But this has to be extended on a very big scale today otherwise with less and less investment and management participation by the the Govt. in industry and in economics, we will have vacuum a which will threaten the entire basis of the new reforms that we have undertaken in this country. You know that even the public sector was conceived not only, purely for economic purposes but for making a contribution to society as a whole. The idea was that every public enterprise should add economically and socially to the living conditions of the people around area where the enterprise was situated in the welfare of the workers, their families, their education, their health and also their capacity to achieve for themselves some sort of self-reliance. Apart from that it was also conceived that each public enterprise should have some general, social and economic development role in the entire neighbourhood where it is situated.
Unfortunately, all this did not take place as was visualised though some of it had actually taken place. Today I think each industry, not only the giant industries in this country, which are doing something significant in their own fields, but even the middle and smaller industries should play this role of social action so that the effects of liberalisation and economic reforms will pervade to the society as a whole. Therefore, in this field you have taken a very important initiative. I am happy that your Bharatiya Yuva Shakti Trust has its association with the other international audiences of the type, especially, the Prince of Wales Youth Business Trust and I think this interaction, I hope will extend to other similar organisations in the world. I am also happy that the British Government is also contributing to your venture.
In this country, the small industrial sector and the agro industrial sector have a very important role to play. As it has been pointed out here there are 2 million small scale industrial units in this country, out of which I understand about 2.5 lakhs are sick. There are sick units, not only in the small scale, in the big scale industries too and therefore it is not such a peculiar feature for one sector of our economy only. But it is also a fact that this small scale industrial sector is making a very vital contribution to employment creation, to exports and to technology development. As a matter of fact most of the important technology development in this country has been taking place in the small scale sector.
Thus through this venture of yours, we can extend this process on a very big scale. I know that Government has many programmes. In fact, we are proud of the fact that the Government has allotted about 30 thousand crores of rupees for rural development, at the centre and about 50,000 crores would be coming from the State sector. This is a very big effort. The Govt. has such programmes as you know the IRDP, it has Jawahar Rozgar Yojna and all these programmes are being implemented in the countryside and also in the urban areas as a whole.
But we also know that there are important defects in the implementation of these programmes. It is not so much as budget allocation but actual implementation that is needed as well as proper utilisation of the funds allotted. I think if an organisation like this can have continuous integration with this kind of Governmental efforts and also with efforts being undertaken by other non-governmental voluntary organisations in the country perhaps, we could get more coherent programme for the country as a whole. We are a big country. We can have any number of organisations working in their respective fields but if there could be a little more coordination among these innumberable organisations and including the governmental work in this field, I think we will get maximum benefit out of this.
When I was in the Science and Technology Ministry I knew that there was an important programme called Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development programme. This did some very good work. They produce l0,000 entrepreneurs as a result of this programme and many young people were helped in setting up industries or small business like the type that you have narrated just now. I feel that when you talk about entrepreneurship and economic development in the country as a whole apart from funds organisation, and more importantly a dimension of scientific and technological knowledge is desperately required. There is lot of it lying around in this country in the heads of educated people and also in our laboratories and in our Government Departments but they are not brought out and applied for the benefit of industries which are actually being set up. Just like your mental programme which is a very creative thing as you said at and affect of the old Indian tradition we could perhaps also have a cadre of scientifically trained people to work together with our massive programmes like the Rozgar Yojana, IRDP etc. which have the organisation, which have the funds, but which were operating at the moment at a very low level of technology.
Whether it house building whether for the masses, or whether it is digging wells or making roads in those innumberable activities of beneficial for rural and urban development, we are not in fact, utilising the technology that we have with us. For this purpose together with out voluntary workers, together with the Government officials, who implement these programmes something like an extension scientific workers could be added. I think, we will get the maximum result out of our investment and out of the organisational work that you are putting in. Mahatma Gandhi once said that whatever the mechanical civilisation may bring for the world it will not solve the problem of unemployment. He was referring specifically to India but also to the rest of the world. Though industrial activity has manifested in itself in innumberable ways in the world today, even the developed countries have not solved the problem of employment through this process. In fact there are new problems in employment coming up in the developed world. I was reading the other day how the march of technology has made it impossible to operate the old concept of a job for life time. Japan had operated on that principle but even in Japan the concept for a person or a family of a job for life time is becoming almost impossible.
In a country like America, everybody has to change his job probably in four or five years. People visualise a situation when one may have to be satisfied with part time jobs in factories. I think, it is apart from the question of employment, it may create a very important social, psychological problem. An institution like a company which was giving livelihood for somebody for all time, for his whole life, is breaking up. It is probably the counterpart of the families breaking up more or less in this. Like that if you have your industry, your companies your job opportunities are interrupted in this way and you are adrift not always looking for job even if you sit at home you may get an income but then what do you do with yourself and that will bring up very very critical social problems. Hence in our own country, particularly not only that we will not be able to give jobs through the mechanisation process, but we will make it almost impossible to give contentment to our people.
Therefore, the idea of creating small jobs in the villages, in the cities, for our people through voluntary effort supported by the Government, even more supported by the industry and business has to be looked upon as a new pattern not only for satisfying our economic wants but for satisfying our social, psychological and cultural wants also. From every point of view this kind of organisations directed for giving self-reliance to individuals or a small group of individuals stand on their leg and also to create employment on a wide scale over the land is of very great importance not only today but for the future. Therefore, I think the initiative you have started is a very creative one which business, industry and the Government and voluntary organisations all of them together should accept wholeheartedly and implement it. May I wish you every success in this venture.
Thank you.
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