President calls for greater industry-academia interface

Kolkata, Aug 22 (PTI) President Pranab Mukherjee todaycalled for greater collaboration between academia and industryfor converting the country’s demographic dividend into anopportunity. "India has a big demographic dividend. But that dividendwill be of no use if we cannot transform it into anopportunity by making it industry-ready. Then it will become ahuge liability," he said at an interaction organised by CIIhere. Mukherjee said there is need to impart skill so that theemployability increases in the world job market. "This is only possible when we build a truly knowledgeeconomy. We must emphasise on innovation and that is notpossible without the partnership of the industry andacademia," he said. The President said India’s expected growth rate in thenext two calendar years is 7.5 per cent and there is also apossibility of revival of the manufacturing and industrialsectors. "For this there is not only a need for a conducive policyenvironment, but also creation and infrastructure likeindustrial and freight corridors following which FDI flow willrise," he said. The four things which wild aid in such an effort werethe ease of doing business, creation of infrastructure andindustrial corridors, increased FDI flow and openness to theIPR regime, he said. "Only opening up more sectors to FDI is not sufficient",Mukherjee said. PTI DC KKSC