Indian Industry needs more human resource to cope with future demand

Kharagpur, Mar 12 (UNI) Hailing the more than 52 per cent growth in the service sector, captains of Indian Industry today underscored the need to strengthen human resource to cope with the increasing demand.

Participating in a day-long workshop on 'Credible India-India in Transition' at the Indian Institute of Technology(IIT) here, Mr Alok Mukherjee,immediate past chairman of ABB, Vesuvius India Limited and Price Waterhouse and Coopers felt that the Indian economy was surging at a break-neck speed in the last couple of years, recording more than eight per cent, requiring a vast pool of highly educated IT professionals and management experts to cope with the demands of the various industries particularly in the manufacturing and service sectors.

Initiating a discussion, organised under the aegis of Vinod Gupta school of management under the IIT, Mr Alok Mukherjee also the president of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry spoke about India's brand equity and emphasised on the need for well-educated management graduates to help establish several international brands.

Speaking on the growth of manufacturing sectors in India, Mr Biswadeep Gupta, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Relation Committee of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), as well as the former chairman of Vesuvius India made a comparative study about the industrial scenario during the present era, viz-a-viz, the pre-liberalisation sceanrio till 1991.

He said, compared to the existance of only two major automobile production units in the country in the late-1980s, at present the emergence of production units of all the major international car manufacturers had brought about a dramatic change in the economic scenario of the country.

This momentum of growth could only be sustained if there were no or very little gap between the demand and supply of an efficient pool of human resources for which, he said, the country was looking towards reputed institutes of management like the IITs and IIMs.

Incidentally, a team of 40 students and faculty members from the University of Nebraska, Omaha, who were on a 10-day educational tour to India as part of an exchange programme, were present at the workshop and exchanged views on different aspects of growth in the socio-economic strata of India.

They also interacted with all the speakers and IIT students to get a first-hand view regarding the socio-economic growth prospects of the country.

During their visit, which began last week, the students met the chiefs of IT giants like Infosys and Wipro in India and were planning to call on the prime minister and Finance Minister P Chidambaram.

UNI