Date:19/12/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/12/19/stories/2008121960000800.htm

Tamil Nadu

Competitiveness council needed: CII

Special Correspondent

CHENNAI: The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on Thursday urged the State government to set up a Tamil Nadu manufacturing competitiveness council to improve the competitiveness of the manufacturing sector.

The council, to be modelled on the National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council, should be headed by a senior policymaker and should include industrialists, economists and industry associations as members, CII Tamil Nadu State council chairman Manikam Ramaswami said.

The council should seek to maintain and improve upon the cost competitiveness of firms; uplift small and medium enterprises; ensure effective implementation of various government schemes; review regulations; fill the gap between industry and academia; brand Indian manufacturing; and help to adopt the best practices.

Training

Later talking to reporters, he said the CII joined hands with 165 training institutes in the State to make semi-skilled people employable through training. The CII members immediately required 4,000 people. Initially the State would bear the training cost. “Our initial target was to train 15,000 people in the first year, but owing to recession, the number has been scaled down to 4,000. It took nearly 8-9 months to reach this level. The first batch of training will begin soon. The workers will be trained in different skill sets. Though we are not promising them jobs, we will help them and the industries,” he said.

Addressing the CII members at ‘Manufacturing Summit 2008: Creating next practices,’ Mark McGregor, Next Practices Author, Originator and Coach, said cutting cost during recession was not the best way to move forward. It would kill the company. Industry Secretary M.F. Farooqui said: “The best brains in the country should invent new processes, instead of imbibing what is taught in institutes.”