Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (NR)

Mangalore, Nov 7: An interactive workshop on ‘Vision 2025’ was organized by the Kanara Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) here on Tuesday, Nov 6. The idea for the workshop was initiated by the Confederation of Indian Industry, South for having a common development agenda for every state.

Participants at the workshop like journalists, teachers, social activists and many others from trade bodies aired their grievances relating to the political instability in the state and at national levels, and its adverse impact on development projects. They also critically touched on the topic of infrastructure, especially bad roads and a host of other related issues.

According to M A Khader from Puttur, the pathetic condition of roads was a major hurdle in the state development. Y Raghuram Shenoy, vice-president of Puttur-CCI, severely criticized the sad state of infrastructure. He opined that the nemesis of the State was in-fact the political crisis and instability. Political parties do not have any agenda for State development, and they are most keen on concentrating on immediate petty gains. “Each party should (therefore) formulate a think-tank to guide its elected representatives in this direction”, he advised.

Lokesh Hegde, president of the Chamber lamented that no effort was made to galvanize tourism potential in the State. The authorities were obsessed with information and bio-technology at the cost of agriculture. Another hurdle is large presence of qualified and educated elected representatives, who appear to no knowledge about development, he rued.

Resource person Hrishikesh T Krishnan of faculty of corporate strategy and policy IIM, Bangalore, who coordinated the discussion, said that CII was keen to formulate a common agenda acceptable to all. All such endeavors at the grass root-level had proved beneficial in developed countries, he informed.

According to Krishnan, Vision-2025 was formulated to develop a common vision of development for each state on which all could work, irrespective of political and ideological differences. The CII has been handed over the task of making independent development agendas for each of the five southern states and the Union territory of Pondicherry. Workshops on this has been conducted at Belgaum, Raichur, Mangalore and other places for people to come forward with ideas to work on a common agenda to work towards all sectors including agriculture. CII would also focus on how the common agenda could be implemented in the respective states, he added.