The Sanjay Singh, Chairman, CII Telangana& Divisional Chief Executive, ITC Ltd-PSPD along with Mr. D Raju, Vice Chairman, CII Telangana and MD & CEO, Kirby Building Systems India Pvt Ltd; Ms Vanitha Datla, Past Chairperson, CII Telangana and Vice Chairperson, Elico Ltd and Ms Nandita Sethi, Vice Chairperson, Indian Women Network (IWN) Telangana, made a courtesy call on K T Rama Rao, Minister for Industries and Commerce, IT, MAUD, Public Enterprises; Mines and Geology; and NRI Affairs, Government of Telangana.
During the meeting the discussions were centered on the areas of Ease of Doing Business, Skill Development, Socio-Economic Scenario, Entrepreneurship, and Development of Tier-II cities, among others.
Mr. Sanjay Singh thanked the minister for the support extended by the Government to CII over the past few years. He informed the minister that CII would be continuing with the theme of “Reimagining and Building Telangana: focusing on Competitiveness, Governance and Inclusiveness” for the year. He also sought Minister’s opinion on the tier-II cities for which CII could work on developing Vision Documents similar to the one that was created for Warangal.
Mr. D Raju, put forth some suggestions of areas that CII could work in close partnership with the Government to strengthen the Industrial Economy of the State, such as setting up of Government-Industry Consultative Group, IP Facilitation Cell, among others.
Ms Vanitha Datla, said that CII is working on a Women in Workforce Policy and put forth the suggestion the state of Telangana should take the lead in implementing this. The policy will focus on supporting the women in achieving their full potential by implementing policies as Work from Home etc. She also informed the Minister that the Cresh Policy was recently submitted by CII to Mr.Shashank Goel, the Principal Secretary Department of Labour, Employment Training and Factories Government of Telangana.
Mr. Nandita Sethi, put forth the suggestion that there is a need to implement program centric approach at the We-Hub to help the women entrepreneurs on the various aspects of running and scaling up a business.
The Hon’ble Minister congratulated Mr. Sanjay Singh and Mr. D Raju on being elected to the post of Chairman and Vice-Chairman of CII Telangana respectively and welcomed the suggestions and inputs from the CII team. Responding to the suggestions, the Minister put forth the following views:
1. On the Ease of Doing Business, he said that it was created to bring about a sense of competitiveness among the states. He opined that the focus should now move towards improving the Quality of Doing Business and managing the Cost of Doing Business. He said that the Hon’ble Chief Minister on taking up the office, has taken proactive steps in reducing the number of inspections and increased the validity period for licenses thus reducing the burden on the industry. He said that the Government is taking steps towards institutionalizing the processes to bring about a mind-set change in the Bureaucracy so that the Industry can focus on improving the Quality of their Business. He also requested CII to work with the DIC’s in the districts to provide him with the actual feedback from the industry inorder to enable him to tackle the issues in a methodical manner.
2. On Skill Development, he felt that there is a need to implement the German model of mandatory 6 month Apprenticeship and Internship in the industry for the graduates to enable them to understand the operations of the industry and have the required skills to be job ready when they move into the work force. He urged CII to take the lead role to strengthen the Industry –Academia connect and he extended the Governments support in allocating resources for grounding this.
3. On Entrepreneurship, he mentioned that there is a need to go to the grassroots to identity the disruptions that are happening in the traditional areas of employment as textile weaving, agriculture and showcase these innovations. There is need to balance the growth of tech start-ups with encouraging rural / social entrepreneurs. He said that RICH can also be partner in creating a good innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem in the State.
4. The Hon’ble Minister said that there is a need to have a holistic approach towards developing Tier-II cities and foster employment. He urged CII not to focus on any particular city, but work on visioning documents for development of industrial corridors covering tier-II and tier-III cities. He said that Hyderabad-Warangal Industrial Corridor is taking great shape and said that similar corridors can be explored such as Hyderabad-Mancherial Corridor, Hyderabad-Vijayawada Corridor which can extend to Machlilipatnam port and Hyderabad-Bangalore Industrial Corridor.
5. The Minister said that the Chief Minister is keen to bring out Green, Pink, Blue and White Revolutions in the State. These will not only create employment opportunities, but also enable the state to be self-sufficient.
a. The Green Revolution will focus on bringing about 1 Crore acres of Land under irrigation by 2020.
b. The Pink Revolution will focus on encouraging the meat processing industry in the State. The sheep rearing scheme introduced by the Chief Minister is first step. Over 50 Lakh sheep have already been distributed and over 80 lakh sheep will be distributed in the coming months.
c. The Blue revolution will focus on revitalizing the 46,000 water bodies in the state which will help promote fisheries and aquaculture.
d. The White Revolution is focused on strengthening the dairy industry in the State.
6. With these four focus areas, the state will also see a huge opportunity for developing the food processing industry. Food processing facilities can be set-up across the state which cater to the fruits, vegetables or spices that are specifically grown in the region. He said that there is huge potential for developing a complete value chain in the Food Processing Industry. He also urged CII to work with the food processing department to identify agricultural products that can be registered under Geographical Indication (GI).
7. The Government already has vision groups which work on the 14 Focus areas identified by the Government and invited CII to be part of these groups.
8. On launching the Women in Work force policy, he said that the Government of Telangana will be willing to launch the policy and has urged CII to set a time frame and work towards submitting the policy for consideration. He also said that WE-HUB was launched as a clean slate and invited CII to work on developing the programs to support the women entrepreneurs.
The CII Team thanked the Hon’ble Minister for his time and valuable inputs and reinforced their commitment to partners in the Growth story of the State and take up the initiatives as outlined by him.