The Confederation of Indian Industry has set up a Mission for Manufacturing Innovation to create "100 new billion-dollar companies over three years".
This is among a clutch of new initiatives announced Thursday by the industry association's new president, Ashok Leyland Managing Director R Seshasayee.
The other initiatives include Mission on Knowledge and Skills under MindTree Consulting Managing Director Ashok Soota to leverage technology to build skills; Mission on Sustainable Growth under Godrej & Boyce Managing Director Jamshyd N Godrej to develop a national policy on sustainability; and Mission on Inclusive Growth under Hero Corporate Services Managing Director Sunil Kant Munjal to extend growth.
Two campaigns were also launched Thursday. One, under Infosys Technologies Chief Executive Officer Nandan Nilekani to build brand salience for India and another under Infosys Chief Mentor NR Narayana Murthy to improve probity in public life.
Chaired by Sona Koyo Steering Systems Chairman And Managing Director Surinder Kapur, the Mission for Manufacturing Innovation will engage global process leaders and innovators. Seshasayee said there was an enormous headroom to scale up.
"Through mentoring by Indian companies from the million-dollar club, we are targeting to create 100 new billion-dollar companies over three years," he said.
Speaking on the importance of sustainability, Seshasayee said that if India and China were to grow at the current rates of growth, in less than two decades, both the countries will consume as much oil as the current world oil consumption and will need thrice as much water as the worldwide consumption today.
"There is no option but to trim our ecological footprint to stay within our bio capacity," he said.
The CII president said the macroeconomic conditions were robust and the growth for the year 2006-07 was expected to be 8.3 per cent, marginally higher than in 2005-06.
He said the growth could have been much higher, but for some downside risks expected during 2006-07. These included a medium term hardening of interest rate due to higher inflationary expectations and increase in interest rates globally and hardening of oil prices.
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