OUR CORPORATE BUREAU
Mumbai, June 3

New CII president Yogi Deveshwar is on a rural drive. In his first meeting with mediapersons in Mumbai after taking charge as CII chief, he cited the example of a paper mill. Mr Deveshwar went on to explain that the number of jobs that the farm sector can create by planting trees and provide raw materials inputs to the paper mill. He also proposed the need for labour reforms in the same vein.

Emphasising on the need to develop 35 million hectares of wasteland, Mr Deveshwar stated that CII will focus on sector which will have multiplier impact on the economy.

Welcoming the amendment to Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) Act, Mr Deveshwar reiterated the need for a common single market to enable movement of goods and service with a unified tax structure. Europe despite have so many countries have a unified market with common tax structure with one currency, he added.

He also gave a new dimension to the CII’s continuous work on competitiveness across all sectors by adding the word ‘sustainability’. Apparently, CII’s theme for 2005-05 announced here on Friday said, “Sustainable Competitiveness of India Inc.” Nurturing and renewing natural and social capital is at the root of ‘sustainability’, he added. Among the other initiatives, Mr Deveshwar proposed that the organisational framework of CII will be redesigned to undertake value chain studies to explore issues in the entire value chain in an integrated manner.

These would include textile value chain (from fibre to fashion), the leather value chain (from carcass to couture) and the food value chain (from seed to stomach) in pharma (from molecule to healthcare) and in fuel (from oil exploration to energy security).