Stress on innovation in manufacturing
Awards presented to cos. for outstanding R&D achievements
Special Correspondent
NEW DELHI: The challenge be-
fore industry and the Union
Government is to grow the
manufacturing sector at 14
per cent annually for the next
ten years from the present
seven per cent to raise the
sector’s contribution to GDP
from 18 per cent to 30 per
cent, V. Krishnamurthy,
Chairman of the National
Manufacturing Competitive-
ness Council (NMCC), said
here on Thursday.
Inaugurating the 20th na-
tional conference on ‘En-
hancing India’s manu-
facturing competitiveness by
leveraging Indian R&D’ orga-
nised by the Department of
Scientific and Industrial Re-
search (DSIR) and the Feder-
ation of Indian Chambers of
Commerce and Industry
(FICCI), Mr. Krishnamurthy
called for improvement of the
climate of innovation, a tech-
nology development fund for
industry, improving the qual-
ity of scientific education and
roping in the youth for pursu-
ing sciences and registering
for doctoral programmes, and
developing capabilities for
turning out advanced tech-
nology products.
Mr. Krishnamurthy under-
lined the need for balanced
growth of agriculture, manu-
facturing and services, where
the contribution of manufac-
turing would have to nearly
double to meet the employ-
ment aspirations of 10 million
youth who enter the job mar-
ket each year.
The Tata spirit
R. A. Mashelkar, Secreatry,
DSIR, , alluding to the acqui-
sition of the U.S. company
Corus by Tata Steel, said: “We
need to rekindle the Tata
spirit. Besides using technol-
ogy to gain competitiveness,
we need to acquire technol-
ogy and Intellectual Proper-
ty.’’
Mr. Krishnamurthy gave
away the national awards for
outstanding research and de-
velopment (R&D) achieve-
ments and commercialisation
of public-funded R&D results
instituted by the DSIR.
Awardees
The awardees were: Shanta
Biotechnics, Hyderabad; Jag-
dish Electronics, Bangalore;
Applied Research Interna-
tional Private Limited, New
Delhi; Audco India Ltd.,
Chennai; Ajeet Seeds Ltd.,
Aurangabad; PTC Industries
Ltd., Lucknow; and Lifecare
Innovations Pvt. Ltd.,
Gurgaon.