The new decade is for the “building of new multinational companies within India”, and the time is perfect for “India’s influence to spread across the world”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday.
How India managed the Covid-19 pandemic should be a subject of “documentation and research”, the Prime Minister said at the virtual foundation stone laying for the permanent campus of IIM Sambalpur. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik was also present at the ceremony.
In previous decades, multinational companies from “outside India” came to this country and grew here, Modi said. “This decade, and this age, is of the building of new multinationals in India. That India’s influence spreads across the world, this is the perfect time for that. Today’s start-ups are tomorrow’s multinational companies.
“And which cities are these start-ups being built in? Those which we call in our language Tier 2, Tier 3 cities. Today you get to see the explosion of start-ups in those places.”
Modi said: “I want to ask you, other IIMs and other business management schools to study how the country worked during the Corona pandemic with technology and teamwork. How steps were taken for the protection of 130 crore people. Responsibilities were taken, jan bhagidari schemes were launched. On all these subjects, there should be documents, there should be research. How did a country of 130 crore people innovate from time to time? How did India expand capacity and capability in a very short time?
“There is a very big lesson for management here. During Covid, a permanent solution for PPE kits, masks, ventilators, has been found.”
The “unprecedented reforms” from the “farm to the space sector” had created wide scope for start-ups, Modi said. “For these new possibilities, you have to ready yourself. You have to join your career with India’s hopes and dreams. In the new decade, to give Brand India a new global recognition is responsibility for all of us, but especially for the youth.”
The IIMs can “act as a bridge” between the Aatmanirbhar Bharat programme and international collaboration, Modi said. “To make local global, all of you and your IIM colleagues have to find new and innovative solutions. I believe that our IIMs, in the mission of aatmanirbharta, can work as a bridge between local produce and international collaboration. Your alumni network that is spread across corners of the world, can help a great deal in this. Until 2014, there were 13 IIMs. Now there are 20 IIMs. Such a big talent pool can give a lot of expansion to the Aatmanirbhar abhiyan,” he said.
