'Innovation is a key managerial strategy for growth': Mukherjee

Asserting that innovation is a key managerial strategy for growth, President Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday said there is a need to lay emphasis on its various dimensions such as process innovation, product innovation, business model innovation and new technology innovation.

"Strong capabilities in designing and building machine tools are particularly critical," he said, and called upon the Industry to develop close partnerships with universities and research institutions to take this aspiration forward.

President Mukherjee, who inaugurated the first Engineers Conclave-2013 at a function at Vigyan Bhavan here, stressed that in our country, a large population lives in villages and there is need for specific technology innovation for rural areas.

President Mukherjee said that it is befitting that this Conclave is being jointly organized by the Indian National Academy Engineering (INAE) and the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO).

He said that the two themes of "Manufacturing of Aerospace systems" and "Transforming Sundarban through engineering interventions" are apt and timely.

He stated that he looked forward to the transformation into practical reality of the ideas being germinated at the conclave.

President Mukherjee said that by virtue of our achievements in multiple fields, India stands poised to emerge as a leading nation in the 21st century.

He said that the innovation capability of our scientists and engineers will play a critical role in enabling India achieve this goal.

"People should be at the heart of the engineering effort, reaching out to human resources, consumers and vendors," he added.