Make India's development a mass movement, PM Modi tells India Inc

Every citizen should think that this is their country and they need to take it forward, Modi said.

Shreya Nandi
Moneycontrol News

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday called for a need to make India's development a 'mass movement', similar to Mahatma Gandhi's fight for the country's independence.

Every citizen should think that this is their country and they need to take it forward, Modi said.

"A spirit should be created, whereby we all set targets for our contribution to India, by 2022. You are my team, and we need to work together to take India forward," Modi said addressing over 200 CEOs at the Champions of Change programme organised by policy think tank NITI Aayog.

This was Modi's second interaction with the industry in less than a week, to seek inputs towards transforming the nation.

This is the first time that the Prime Minister has so closely interacted with the industry, trying to understand the key hurdles to growth across various sectors.

Six groups of young CEOs made presentations before Modi on themes such as Make in India; doubling farmers' income; world class infrastructure; cities of tomorrow; reforming the financial sector; and new India by 2022.

"Instead of the businesses generally complaining on what the government should do, for the first time, the industry and the government were working together to find solution to the problems," Vinod Dasari, Managing Director of Ashok Leyland told Moneycontrol. Dasari was one of the participants at the event and was part of the team that gave inputs on Make in India.

Heads of companies including Cipla, Asian Paints, Forest Essentials, Zivame, Rentomojo, Ashok Leyland, TVS Motors, Hitachi India, Da Milano, and Mahindra Electric were present at the event.

"This is a phenomenal initiative. A lot of great ideas came up. Glad secretaries and ministers listened to us. Hopeful our suggestions will see the light of the day," Sumant Sinha, chairman & CEO, Renew Power said.

Modi also said that the government has taken a number of decisions that lead to fundamental transformation across various spheres. He elucidated the decisions taken to ensure smooth supply of gas for the production of urea, which led to an additional 20 lakh tonnes of production.

The prime minister also focused on tourism and said that each one should develop a temperament to promote tourist destinations within India, citing examples of Hampi in Karnataka and Rann of Kutch in Gujarat.

Thank you @bikash1993