Media Release
Udupi, Jan 19: TA Pai Memorial organized its 29th T A Pai Memorial Lecture in the memory of its founder late T A Pai at Hotel Valley View on January 17.
The chief guest of the occasion was Dr V A Panandiker, president of Academy of International Education, Goa, who delivered a lecture on innovation brought in by T A Pai in banking and governance. K Jairaj , additional chief secretary, government of Karnataka, was the guest of honour.
Dr Vasudev Rao welcomed the gathering. Dr Rao acknowledged the contribution of Padma Bhushan awardee T A Pai who laid the cornerstone of TAPMI over 30 years ago. Dr Rao recalled the vision of T A Pai which intended to give back to the society by creating similar employment opportunities. Noting the contributions of Pai, Dr Rao elaborated on roles of Pai and Dr Upendra Pai in forming Canara Industrial and Banking Syndicate Limited in 1925 named later as Syndicate Bank.
An awards ceremony was also held at the event where Dr Ramdas Pai, chairman of TAPMI Governing Council, presented the awards to the employees of TAPMI who completed 10 and 20 years at the institute. The awardees included Ganesh Pujary – office staff, Dr Simon George - Dean (Academics) and Narayana - office superintendent.
On this occasion, second issue of the quarterly alumni newsletter “Abhijna” was released by Jairaj. Dr Gururaj Kidiyoor, PGP Chairman, who also happens to be an alumnus of the institute, received the copy of the newsletter.
Speaking on T A Pai, Dr Panandiker elaborated on how in late 1960s the task of developing an acceptable social control of banking system was entrusted on T A Pai by Moraji Desai, the then Prime Minister of India. Dr Panandiker appreciated the challenges taken by T A Pai in estabhishing a new paradigm in banking by making credit an instrument of banking and not the engine which Pai believed was entrepreneurship. Dr Panandiker emphasized the vision of T A Pai, which was to make the innovative social banking system sustainable. According to Dr. Panandiker the key lessons to be learnt from T A Pai’s contributions to Syndicate Bank, Konkan Railways, LIC of India etc. are innovation, creativity and clarity.
Jairaj delivered a lecture on “Management & Bureaucracy: Are they Antithetical?”. Jairaj in his lecture stated that today management and bureaucracy are converging together. He also highlighted that the convergence results in professional development. He appreciated the role of bureaucracy in maintaining consistent governance in all geographical locations across the nation. Jairaj identified several factors such as difference of ownership, clarity of objectives, human resource and organization structure where a better co-ordination was required between public and private enterprises to create a better India.