AIMA to focus on expanding base of professionals

Our Management Bureau in New Delhi

Spelling out the All India Management Association’s theme for the year as ‘Global competitiveness by building India’s professional resource base and unleashing sustainable economic revolution,’ Mr Rajive Kaul, the newly installed AIMA president, said the association has decided to set up a high-level national task force to prepare a blueprint for adding at least one million professionals per annum , which currently is about 5.5 million. The task force would study the issue and forward its suggestions for achieving this objective to the government within a time frame of six months.

The idea is to meet not just India’s needs, but shortages emerging globally. The task force will identify foreign markets and skill sets that can be fed by India. ‘‘We at AIMA feel that India has a great opportunity to leapfrog into world economic leadership by expanding its base of trained professionals as developed nations like the US, Germany, Japan and Australia are going to face a severe shortage of skilled people over the next 10-15 years. After losing out in the industrial revolution, we plan to win decisively in the knowledge era,’’ he said.

The idea of the task force stemmed from AIMA’s recent National Management Convention where the consensus had been that India’s intellectual competitiveness was unmatched and the creation of a professional resource base needed to be pursued as a national mission.

The task force, which will comprise academicians, professionals, administrators and CEOs, is expected to be an 18-member body and will be set up in a month’s time.

The targeted one million professionals per annum would include the entire gamut of knowledge workers: doctors, engineers, biotech & marketing professionals etc. The task force will at a later stage identify the specific numbers needed for the different skill sets.

Mr Kaul went so far as to predict that biotechnology could well be the next boom area after IT, saying, ‘‘our effort should be to see that we can ride the crest of that boom, when it occurs.’’ Mr Kaul stressed the need for taking up higher education as a national mission. ‘‘The government should focus on primary education and leave higher education, which is commercially viable, to private initiative,’’ said Mr Kaul, pointing out that India’s expenditure on education is an abysmal 3.2 per cent of GDP, which is lower than the world average of 4.8 per cent. Even lower income countries contribute 3.3 per cent to this sphere.

Another AIMA initiative will include setting up a forum where top professional managers will interact on a regular basis once a month with parliamentarians to discuss important issues. This is on the lines of similar meetings held successfully by the Institute of Management in the UK.