In his first press conference as president of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Mr. Y. C. Deveshwar unveiled the CII’s plans to develop a strategic approach for achieving high rates of growth with sustainability of natural and social capital. Mr. Deveshwar said that “sustainability” would be the new dimension of CII’s continuing work on competitiveness across all sectors -agriculture, manufacturing, and services.

Mr. Deveshwar said that the addition of “sustainability” would entail a focus on five areas: Employability and employment; rural economy; infrastructure; nurturing and renewing natural and social capital; and governance.

He stated that in the area of employability and employment, the CII would focus on the growth of employment-intensive sectors such as textiles and garments, leather and leather products, food processing and tourism.

In order to develop the rural economy the CII plans to improve farm productivity through the greater use of IT; expanding the irrigation network; and promoting market-led crop diversification.

He also proposed that the organisational framework of CII should be redesigned to undertake value chain studies to explore issues in the entire value chain, cutting across sectors.  He cited the examples of the textile value chain (From fibre to fashion), the leather value chain (From carcass to couture), and the food value chain (From seed to stomach) as some areas that would be studied as an input to policy formulation.