June 12, 2026 10:38 pm (IST)
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Prez emphasises benefits of demographic dividend, stresses on increase of interface between industry and academia
Kolkata, Aug 22 (IBNS): President Pranab Mukherjee, who is visiting Kolkata, on Monday said that if India wants to make good use of the demographic dividend challenges will have to be converted to opportunity to become a knowledge economy and stress should be laid on innovation.
Addressing a special plenary session on “Building a Knowledge Society” during the day-long session of Industry Academia Innovation Platform organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in collaboration with Indian Institute of Engineering, Science and Technology (IIEST), Shibpur, the President said, several initiatives like Start-up India, Make in India etc. have already been initiated to achieve this goal.
Mukherjee outlined the importance of demographic dividend and said "if we fail to grab the opportunity, the largest workforce in 2022 may become a liability for us."
He appreciated the endeavour of IIEST, Shibpur to create an interface between the industry and the academia and said, the institution is trying to forge ahead by setting-up world class laboratory and other infrastructural facilities.
Mukherjee suggested a few measures like, Ease of Doing Business, establishing Infrastructural and Industrial Corridor, Foreign Direct Investment, Intellectual Property Right and Interaction with Asian Tigers to achieve the targeted result of improving employability.
Dwelling on the issues, the President said India likes to achieve the rank of 50 in the world in terms of ease of doing business and if we strictly adhere to this norms which prescribes a good synergy between industry and educational institutions, it will be a great boon to us.
He also stressed on five industrial corridors, which have already been identified and said manufacturing is the key to success of these corridors.
"We have to increase the share of manufacturing from 15% of GDP to 25% to see the country in the desired level of achievers," said Mukherjee,
In this context, the President underlined the importance of research in the academia and said, industry should also play a supporting role.
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