President calls for greater industry-academia interface

President Pranab Mukherjee today called for greater collaboration between academia and industry for converting the country's demographic dividend into an opportunity.
"India has a big demographic dividend. But that dividend will be of no use if we cannot transform it into an opportunity by making it industry-ready. Then it will become a huge liability," he said at an interaction organised by CII here.
Mukherjee said there is need to impart skill so that the employability increases in the world job market.
"This is only possible when we build a truly knowledge economy. We must emphasise on innovation and that is not possible without the partnership of the industry and academia," he said.

The President said India's expected growth rate in the next two calendar years is 7.5 per cent and there is also a possibility of revival of the manufacturing and industrial sectors.
"For this there is not only a need for a conducive policy environment, but also creation and infrastructure like industrial and freight corridors following which FDI flow will rise," he said.
The four things which wild aid in such an effort were the ease of doing business, creation of infrastructure and industrial corridors, increased FDI flow and openness to the IPR regime, he said.
"Only opening up more sectors to FDI is not sufficient", Mukherjee said.