CII's launches Village Buddha Project to build strong relation between business and society

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on Friday launched the Village Buddha Project to build strong relation between business and society.

"India has the feasibility to achieve 12-14% average manufacturing growth over the next 10 years backed by the talent that has the potential to drive innovation and take critical decision at the micro and enterprise level," said Ajay Shankar, Member Secretary, National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council, Government of India.

"In the past few years, public discourse in the country has shifted towards manufacturing and with the talent generated from VLFM that is expected to be further scaled up, Indian manufacturing will hopefully be the supply base," he said.

At Launch of Village Buddha model, Shankar said," that unless we transform the way, where economic activities are undertaken, we cannot transform the quality of life. This would be a real challenge."

However, he expressed hope that with the help of technology and information technology in particular, a dramatic transformation at village level can be achieved.

Congratulating all the participants for successfully completed the program, Shankar indicated that the real journey will now begin as the biggest lesson is to unlearn what you have learnt and innovate further, which is the source and strength to succeed in this highly competitive world.

He also appreciated the partnership with Japan for the VLFM program and spoke about the transformation that Japan undertook without any mineral or energy resources

In his welcome remarks, Venu Srinivasan, chairman VLFM Initiative and Past President, Confederation of Indian Industry said that the VLFM initiative has snowballed across institutions and today we have a force of 1,100 committed managers that have emerged from this program.

Speaking about the revival in the consumer confidence in the country, Srinivasan said the challenge now is to train people and retain them as a lot of manufacturing is set to come to India and that will increase competition to attract talent.

Moreover, supply chain and logistics is set to transform manufacturing worldwide and we must become part of the environment and not just become an observer from outside, Srinivasan said.

Speaking on future growth of Indian manufacturing, Mr Jamshyd N. Godrej, Past President, CII and former chairman of VLFM Initiative said that it will largely relate to serving higher level of consumer needs.

Higher needs that gives higher level of satisfaction and not just being highly expensive, he clarified citing an example of the energy usage in an electrical appliance.

Stating that the manufactured product has to be good and green, caring for the environment, Godrej said that the future of any product is going to be convergence of satisfaction and sustainability and add value to the society.