Make Sustainability an Important Element of Life: Piyush Goyal at DAKSH 2023 at Christ University, Bengaluru

Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Textiles, Shri Piyush Goyal urged students to make sustainability an important element of their lives stressing that sustainability is going to determine the future of the planet.  He was delivering his remarks at the inaugural ceremony of DAKSH 2023 at Christ University, Bengaluru via VC.

Addressing the gathering, Shri Goyal also asked everyone to adopt LiFE- Lifestyle for the Environment so that in day-to-day lives we start focusing on a circular economy, start eliminating wastage and start recycling and reuse.

Terming the students as the Catalyst of the new India, Minister said Government can only act as enablers, help in providing the ecosystem and strength economy, facilitate ease of doing business, ensure adequate availability of technology/ digital connectivity, improve skiing universities, provide infrastructure but pointed out that all of this is as good as the maximum use one can make of this enabling environment.

To become a leader, the Minister said, there has to be a continuous journey of learning. He hoped Christ University would create leaders of tomorrow, who will make the Indian flag proud all across the world. He asked them to become leaders of innovation and set very high targets in whatever work they choose to do. He said that all of us are students all our lives, learning new things every single step. He also noted that Bengaluru has created a huge startup ecosystem be it in space, e- commerce, digital payments, agritech and has emerged as a trusted partner across the world. He asked the students to embrace the future with confidence, embrace the emerging changes and keep exploring how we can become more relevant and impact the lives of common man.

Shri Goyal opined that over the years the country has not adopted Quality with the same enthusiasm as we should have. He urged everyone to become brand ambassadors of quality and spread the message of importance of quality so that all of us start  insisting on quality as consumers, and offer quality in goods and services as stakeholders of the economy.

Concluding his remarks, Shri Goyal said our future is intertwined with each other and emphasised that together this nation will transform into the world’s most powerful nation. He exhorted everyone to unite and move ahead with the sense of purpose to make India a superpower. “Let's focus our actions around people, progress and the planet”, he added.

Responding to a question by a student on Industry and academia collaboration, Shri Goyal said that NEP came out in 2020 but unfortunately due to covid, could not have outreach programmes with many universities. He said the Government is engaging with universities across the world, pointing out that Stanford University has expressed their interests and is looking at expanding collaboration between India and the USA. India is also in talks with Gulf countries and exploring having offshore campuses of IITs and IIM in middle east countries. He informed that Australia and India are in dialogue to offer joint degree/ dual degrees for students of  both countries. India is in dialogue with the UK for mutual recognition of degrees and supporting each other with offshore campuses for colleges of both the countries. He also reiterated that the government will only act as an enabler, it is the universities which will have to engage with each other and expand their operations.

On important focus elements while deciding upon FTA negotiations, Shri Goyal said Government believes in having more and more stakeholder engagements, to get feedback on policy and help them improve their business. Government tries to quickly act and resolve the problems faced by industry. He said the Government has been successful in helping the start up ecosystem and service industry. Further, he urged the Management of Christ university to have a competition among their students, wherein they can suggest what needs to be done by the government, business, industry.  Those who give best suggestions can be awarded, he added.

When asked if the GST collections are increasing due to increase in production or due to inflation, Shri Goyal said inflation could be a small element to that but emphasised that a large part of GST increase is attributed to economic activities. He said that increasing imports signal that economic activity is picking up in India and this increased demand will encourage new investment thereby creating new jobs. He also pointed out that inflation has largely been in energy products and India has been able to maintain other products at reasonable levels.