SME Times News Bureau | 15 May, 2018
NITI
Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant on
Monday said that change in mindset is a must for innovation and make
the best of business
opportunities available in the country.
The
need of the hour is to bring about a change in mindset and give free
play to innovation to cash in on the vast business opportunities that
lie ahead, Amitabh
Kant
said, speaking at FICCI's Circular Economy Symposium-2018.
He
underlined the need to embed the principles of circular economy in
India's school education system. T
his
process will equip young learners with the right mindset and enable
them to become active shapers of a movement that will secure the
future with finite resources, he
said.
Kant
said that India needs to grow at about 10% annually for the next
three decades to be able to meet the ever-rising demand of its
burgeoning population. This order of growth is not achievable if the
business-as-usual approach to the use of scarce resources is not
abandoned, he said.
He
said that in order to reduce the dependence of fossil fuels in
transportation, NITI Aayog analysis suggests that the way forward is
the use of bio-fuels. "We are giving a big push to electric
vehicles in a bid to conserve exhaustible natural resources and bring
about resource efficiency," he said.
On
the occasion, Kant released the FICCI-Accenture Theme Paper
on 'Accelerating India's Circular Economy Shift: Future proofing
growth in a resource scarce world'.
Ajay
Mathur, Director General, The Energy and Resources Institute
(TERI), underlined
the need to monetise the collection of waste materials, certify it
before it goes into recycling and ensure that different parties in
the value chain interact with one another to put the recycled
material to the best possible use.
Vijay
Kalra, CEO, Mahindra Vehicle Manufacturers Ltd., spelt out
Mahindra's sustainability framework which aims at keeping products,
components and materials at their highest utility and value at all
times.
Vipul
Shah, Chief Operating Officer, Petrochemicals, Reliance Industries
Ltd., pointed out that in a consumption-led society, the end
user and the intermediary businesses will drive the circular economy.
The need of the hour was to re-imagine our economies as circular as
opposed to linear and develop a construct that keeps resources for as
long as possible and re-use products after their use.
Anirban Ghosh, Chair of the symposium and Chief Sustainability
Officer, Mahindra & Mahindra and Dr.
Ashok Menon, Global Technology Leader, Sustainability Analytics &
Operations, Corporate Sustainability Division, SABIC Technology
Centre, also shared their perspectives on the subject.