Ludhiana, October 9, 2019: Punjab Research & Innovation (PRI) set up by the state government to promote research and innovation for the economic growth of the state is expected to enhance competiveness, boost growth and create jobs, said Upkar Singh Ahuja, president, Chamber of Industrial and Commercial Undertakings (CICU).
At an interactive session organized here, Ahuja observed that industry was passing through a turbulent time amid tough competition and has to work on New product development, Innovative products and Services, Industry academia interface can be effective tool for the same .
On the occasion, R.K. Verma, Principal Secretary, Department of Science, Technology & Environment, Punjab, through a presentation, elaborated that the secret of growth of Europe, Israel, USA and other industrially developed countries. He urged the industrialists to be part of Punjab Research and Innovation and make best use of it. He also shared the information of successful model of North Carolina Research Tranle where Government. education institutes and Industries are at one location.
The park is home to more than 300 companies employing 55,000 workers and an additional 10,000 contractors, including the second largest IBM operation in the world, smaller only than the one in India; the company has around 10,000 employees in RTP ,The park hosts one of GlaxoSmithKline's largest R&D centres with approximately 5,000 employees. Cisco Systems' campus in RTP, with approximately 5,000 employees, is the second highest concentration of its employees outside of its Silicon Valley corporate headquarters. The National Institutes of Health has its National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences located and many more.
Pankaj Sharma, General Secretary, CICU said that this Govt. opportunities will create a new heights for industry development and which is very useful to collaborate with Academia and use the faculty for Innovation, Product Development, Filing Patent and Research & Development.
He also said that Punjab Research and Innovation to be Steered By Punjab State Council For Science & Technology in collaboration with 25 Universities and Research Institutions by keepings goals like Enhance Competitiveness, Boost Growth, Create Quality Employment and Achieving Sustainable Development.
He also said that in this competitive era INDUSTRY NEEDS are Increase Productivity, Reduce manufacturing and operational costs, Improve production process flexibility, Enable scalability in costs and functionalities, Penetrate new markets/ Global recognition.
The officials from PPCB present on the occasion included Kurnesh Garg, Member Secretary, Pritpal Singh, Senior Engineer, PSCST and Major Singh, GM, District Industries Centre (DIC), Ludhiana.
The meeting was attended by key industrialists incl;uding J.R Single, O.P Bassi, B.C Verma, J.S Bhogal, D.S.Chawla , Anagd Singh, T.R Misra, Vinod Thapar, S.M Mehta, Rajat Sood, Sham Gupta, Tarlochan Singh, Rajiv Jain, G.S Khalon, Gautam Malhotra, Ravinder Saini, R.P Sharma, Jagtar Singh United and other prominent members of the Chamber.