Tag: Ministry of Commerce and Industry

Logistics process streamlining & backend system enabling underway: Pawan Kumar Agarwal

New Delhi: Speaking at IAMAI 15th India Digital Summit, Shri Pawan Kumar Agarwal, Special Secretary, Logistics, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, GOI while giving keynote on Building future ready logistics network for the Country said, “Logistics and Supply Chain are omnipresent issues across the sectors but we realized their importance during COVID times”.

Shri Agarwal stated that “Unified laws across the different modes of transport is completed by the government however process on streamlining and backend system enabling are currently underway.”

Shri Agarwal stressed that use of technology in logistics is a very important area and perhaps, one area where lot of work needs to be done. “Different departments are already working towards systems and initiatives in this direction and moving forward the idea is to merge all these individual system and build a logistics data stand which can be used by new age companies to give market solutions”, he said.

In another session on Farm to Frontier Model for India’s Development, Shri Jayant Sinha, Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha said, “India is forging a totally different development model – the farm to frontier model as opposed to the traditional one of farm to factory”. He also spoke on the need of upgradation of skills and supporting people with the right ecosystem so that they can produce more. “The individual needs to be embedded in a system where they can produce more – that is the path of economic development,” he said.

Shri Sinha explained his notion of Aatmanirbhar Bharat as Creation of Competitive, Sustainable and Resilient (CSR) industries in India. He also talked about how technology is the best solution to increasing productivity and to grow faster. The answer has always been technology to improve productivity – there is no other way. There is a need to give people the technology assistance so that they can be as adept to improve productivity and can generate more, earn more and become prosperous, he explained.

Shri Deep Kalra, Founder and CEO of MakeMyTrip, in conversation with Shri Prashant Tandon, Co-Founder & CEO, 1mg shared his experiences as a pioneer of digital entrepreneurship in India for the past two decades. Shri Kalra also gave his take about the future of the digital economy and India’s role in it. He explained that Digital India is going to be a driver of growth in the decade to come. Owing to the nature of innovation and the speed of innovation in the digital space, India will be able to innovate their way to becoming global leaders in the space. He added that it is important for the Government to catch-up with the sector, but entrepreneurs should not rely on that to compete.

Shri Kalra further clarified that all burgeoning new entrepreneurs can do is to minimize their fixed costs and find ample resources to persist and innovate till the market realizes their value.

The event comprised of six tracks: Building National Digital Infrastructure; Marketing for the Masses; Innovative digital services beyond the first 100 million paid customers; Digitally Recharging Small and Medium Business; Digital Policies from Global Perspective but Indian Reality; Nurturing Indian Startups.

“Atmanirbhar spirit will result in India coming out much stronger after Covid-19,” says minister Hardeep Singh Puri

Kolkata: “The Atmanirbhar Bharat spirit will result in India coming out much stronger after Covid-19 because we are unleashing our animus spirits in terms of self-reliance and work. Some of this is in reaction to global trends. If the global supply chains are unduly dominated by a particular country, and you apprehend difficulties, well thats the genius of the Indian people to quickly rebound and the results are heartwarming,” said Mr Hardeep Singh Puri at a special online session of The Write Circle and in conversation with former diplomat, author and foreign policy analyst, T C A Raghavan, organized by Prabha Khaitan Foundation of Kolkata. The Write Circle is a forum that brings top minds and experts to share perspectives and deep insights from diverse fields and spheres of activity.

Mr Puri, who currently holds three portfolios as the Minister of State (Independent Charge) Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and Ministry of Civil Aviation, and the Minister of State, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, in response to a question by Mr. Raghavan further said, “Atmanirbhar Bharat is not intended to be an inward-looking excuse to close our borders to the world. It is a spirit and a resolve to make us more productive and better members of the International Community and the global system. We are on the cusp of the fourth industrial revolution with the Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, and artificial intelligence, and the spirit is to make sure we don’t become a lego or just nuts and bolts. Atmanirbhar will resonate strongly because we want to take advantage of the other supply chains in the world.”

As a career diplomat for 39 years, Mr. Puri has held many important posts including former Representative of India in the United Nations, President of UN Security Council and Chairman of UNSC Counter-Terrorism Committee and others. Mr. Puri has also authored two books Perilous Interventions and Delusional Politics.

Commenting on various challenges and struggles of the COVID pandemic, Mr. Puri said, “Since 6th May India has now (in the fifth phase) brought back over 1.4 million citizens from across the globe during the pandemic. I can say with a sense of confidence that this is the largest evacuation and repatriation mission undertaken at any point of time in human history and the rate at which things are moving we shall set a new record. We were able to do it within reasonable arrangements of social distancing and other safety quotients.”

Touching upon different topics he said that the lockdown has helped us to create necessary infrastructure – the number of beds required; PPEs, ventilators, medicines, etc., that have been exported to many countries in the world, including the developed West.

Puri lauded the Prime Minister for the foresight and courageous steps to combat the pandemic. “The decision to prioritise life and livelihood is a difficult one. Domestic civil aviation was opened on 22nd May and in the pre-COVID days India was handling 2.5 to 3 lakh passengers per day. By Diwali we hope to handle 1.5 to 2 lakh passengers per day and hopefully, by the end of the year we would go back to the pre-covid days,” Puri said.

Talking about his other ministry, he said that they have built more than 6,00,000 public toilets and more than 66,00,000 toilets in individual households. This has helped to reduce the open defecation in India and also helped in gender empowerment by providing safety and security to the girl child. The Yojanas that helped micro industries has played a huge role in tackling covid.These micro industries produced crores of face masks, lakhs of PPE kits and thousands of litres of sanitisers.

Even though a scheme such Awas Yojana shouldn’t be a factor in deciding who to vote for, there is some sort of correlation according to Puri. Even in the case of youngsters who faced job problems came in and voted for Modi ji because there was a clear outline of the plan.