Need Greater Participation from Private Sector in Pension Sector: Rajiv Takru, Secretary, Financial Services

Mr Rajiv Takru, Secretary (Financial Services), Ministry of Finance, delivering the Inaugural Address at the 1^st Pensions Summit organized by CII emphasized the need for greater participation from the private sector to scale up the National Pension System on the foundation of providing safety and value for money for investors.

Commenting on the work by the PFRDA, Mr Takru said that the regulatory body has made progress, however, a lot remained to be done. He expressed hope that with statutory powers vested in the body, post the passage of the PFRDA Bill, the Authority would become an effective regulator and a developmental institution.

The Secretary, Financial Services also pointed to the importance of a vibrant pension sector for the country to have options of long term funding sources. Alluding to examples in Canada and the US, Mr Takru said that in India the options for funding sectors like infrastructure have limitations in terms of the tenure of funding. Therefore, the growth of a robust pension sector would provide the flexibility of tenure when it comes to financing sectors like infrastructure.

Responding to a point made on incentives for promoting the pension sector in India, Mr Takru said that the current levels of incentives are adequate. However, what is required is a mindset and a plan for revenue maximization, which would ensure that players in the field find the business sustainable.

Addressing the Summit, Mr Sanjiv Bajaj, Co- Chairman, CII National Committee on Insurance & Pensions and Managing Director, Bajaj Finserv Ltd stated that the passage of PFRDA Act has provided the much needed policy push to the Indian pension sector and has opened up the avenue to enter its most crucial phase of growth and evolution.

Mr Bajaj further added that the stage is set for better governance of retirement plans in India and boost people’s confidence that their contributions in pension plans will be professionally managed. Further, the FDI permitted through the PFRDA Act 2013 is expected to help in bringing appropriate global practices to India.

In his theme presentation, Mr Abizer Diwanji, Partner & National Leader – Financial Services, EY India stated India’s pension business has immense potential to grow due to the fact that a large segment of its population has no access to a retirement fund. He further highlighted the importance of pension funds in supporting funding of long-term infrastructure projects, bring stability in capital markets and help its elderly population to be financially independent.

A Report on Pensions Business in India was released by the Chief Guest, Mr Rajiv Takru at the Inaugural Session of the Summit. 

Large business opportunity for particulate emission technology and equipment: J S Kamyotra, Member Secretary, Central Pollution Control Board

Innovation is the need of the day to tackle the problem of emissions in the country, emphasised member Secretary, Central Pollution Control Board Mr J S Kamyotra here on Wednesday.

Delivering the keynote address at the CII Conference on Innovative Monitoring & Abatement Technologies for Emission – “leveraging Automation for Particulate Emission Trading”, Mr Kamyotra said India is trying out with an innovative market mechanism to deal with this – Particulate Emission Trading. “It is being tried out as a pilot project in three states – Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra – where the 15 critically polluted areas in the country are located. About 1000 industries have been identified in these states for monitoring which attracts huge business opportunity for technology and equipment for particulate emission abatement,” said Mr Kamyotra.

Mr Kamyotra said this involves two aspects – first, measuring of emissions and the formulation of standards for emission for every industry and, second, ensuring that the industry complies with the standards.

For measuring and monitoring emission, especially particulate emission, Mr Kamyotra laid particular emphasis on the need for innovation in developing technology and instruments in India suitable for Indian conditions. “The instruments manufactured by developed countries were not ideally suited for Indian ambient conditions and are costly,” he said.

Mr K Nandakumar, Chairman, CII Instrumentation and Automation Division in his welcome address, referring to investment in emission technology and equipment, outlined the issue of finance for investment. The challenge is to create awareness and put this awareness into practice, he said. He noted that the Ministry of Environment and Forests, the Central Pollution Control Board and the State Pollution Control Boards have put out a number of regulations and these need to be taken into account in setting up and operating industry.

The Head of Corporate Support Centre, SICK, Germany, Mr Frank Hehl said that there are pollutants which is a worldwide concern, especially in industrialised countries. “Industries provide livelihood and development but they also harm the environment,” he said.

He said there are “pollutants such as mercury, dioxins that create health problems over a period and have long term effects, but it is difficult in each case to find a direct link between these pollutants and their effect”.

Laying stress on the need for controlling emissions, he said emission trading is one such mechanism which is market based. At present, it is only for carbon emissions and covers Green House Gases. “The particulate emission trading,” he said, “holds a new business opportunity for your country.”

Earlier, General Manager of National Thermal Power Corporation Mr RK Bagchi said his company’s name brought to mind ‘three Ps’ – power plant, power and pollution. Conceding that thermal plants were polluting, Mr Bagchi said the key to whole issue is measurement of pollutants. In industrial sector, he said a major source of pollution was dependence of small and medium scale industries on diesel generating sets which not only produced sulphuric and nitrous oxides but also particulate matter.

OUTPERFORM COMPETITION IN VUCA ERA states the 13th CII National Marketing Summit 2013

Mr Adi Godrej, Immediate Past President, CII & Chairman, The Godrej Group in his address as the Chief Guest at the 13th CII National Marketing Summit 2013 spoke about the Godrej experience of connecting with and touching the lives of 600 million Indian consumers through its products in both the consumer durable and personal products categories. The Godrej Group has through perseverance, quality focus and conscious brand investment in rural marketing penetrated the bottom of the pyramid and is one of the leaders in securing a large consumer base in the developing economies.

Indian companies are now entering a phase of responsible marketism and going forward (they) must be both customer centric and society centric. Marketers need to imbibe and apply experimentation, common sense and intuition in developing effective marketing strategies for their companies and brand, said Mr Mr R Gopalakrishnan, Director, Tata Sons Ltd in his Inaugural address at the CII Marketing Summit.

Earlier in his welcome and keynote address, Mr Thomas Varghese, Chairman, CII National Committee on Marketing 2013-14 & CEO-Textile Business, Aditya Birla Group  noted that uncertainty had integrated itself into global economic structures and markets and had climbed the “to do” charts of Chief Executives across the world who cite preparing for uncertainty as one of their top priorities. He cited six structural factors – macroeconomic forces, commodity-price volatility, policy instability, changing consumer dynamics, emergence of new competitors and game changing technologies as those driving uncertainty in India. Increase in the choice spectrum, backed by information, was shifting consumer preferences and squeezing established margins, creating price volatility and triggering most players to cut their costs in order to protect their earnings. Ensuring operational flexibility through alternative sourcing options, dynamic supply chain management, lean operations and efficient working capital management would be critical in such volatile environments he predicted. The panacea to remain profitable in unpredictable times, he stated, was the formulation of retention strategies, conversion of existing money not the attraction of new money to maintain growth and effective cost management.

Mr Vikash Daga, Partner, Mc Kinsey & Company referring to their paper “Market beating performance in uncertain times” which was released during the Summit, estimated that an organizations Sales & Marketing lever had between 50-60% EBITDA potential as compared to its manufacturing and procurement levers and could successfully help organizations to successfully navigate a slowdown. Careful alignment of strategy with the fast growing segments, solid key account management, and increasing sales productivity were potential keys to success in a B2B setup. Similarly, several opportunities to grow in a B2B2C setup existed by making changes in go-to-market strategy. The new thinking on measuring Sales & Marketing RoI, he stated, comprised primarily of two components; profitability and productivity. McKinsey had identifying that organizations needed to have 8 capabilities and 4 enablers to be a Sales & Marketing success. It was their forecast, he concluded, that ensuring end-to-end availability for B2C organizations, building sales capability to boost productivity and leveraging analytics as the three emerging themes which could be game changers for market beating performances by organisations. The building of smart social media strategies and big data analytics in the Sales and Marketing plans  of organisations portend great possibilities for change and growth.  India is likely to have 330-370 Million internet users by 2015 (the second largest in the world). Most companies are increasing their spend on digital marketing, especially social media, and its power is common knowledge now.

A highly distinguished panel of speakers from across the Indian Industry and abroad will be addressing the Summit which has as its theme Market Beating Performance in Uncertain Times. Notable speakers who will address the Summit will include Anisha Motwani, Max Life Insurance; Chandramouli Venkatesan, Cadbury India, CVL Srinivas, GroupM Media India Pvt;  Devita Saraf, Vu Technologies Pvt Ltd; Farida Kaliyadan, Aditya Birla Group; G K Suresh, ITC Ltd; Girish Shah, Godrej Properties; Gayatri Yadav, STAR India; Harish Bijoor, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.; Ian-St Maurice, Mc Kinsey & Company, Singapore; Kartik Jain, HDFC Bank; Nimal Manuel, McKinsey & Company- Kuala Lumpur; Natwar Mall, Fractal Analytics Ltd; Nilanjan Mukherjee, ITC; Neelesh Garg, ICICI Lombard ; Neeraj Kapoor, Grow Brands; Prakash Nedungadi, Aditya Birla Group; Paul McInerney, McKinsey & Company, Tokyo; Rajiv Kaul, CMS Info Systems Ltd; Rishi Vasudev, Arvind Lifestyle Brands Ltd; Rishi Dogra, PepsiCo India; Ramdoss Seetharaman, Mc Kinsey & Company;  Saurine Doshi, AT Kearney; Sandeep Kaul, ITC Ltd; Sam Balsara, Madison World; Shantanu Bhanja, Hindustan Times Media; Sunil Kataria, Godrej Consumer Products Limited; Sanjeev Kapur, Citi India; Sunil Kumar, Exchange4media Group; Sarajit Jha, Tata Business Support Services Ltd; Samrath Bedi, Forest Essentials; Shivnath Thukral, Essar Group; Satyaki Ghosh, L’Oreal India; Vikash Daga, Mc Kinsey & Company;  Vikas Ahuja, Myntra.com; Vinay Bhatia, Shoppers Stop; Vishal Bali, Fortis Healthcare International Pvt Ltd

The purpose of the CII Marketing Summit is to deliberate on the challenges facing businesses resulting from market globalization, rapid technological development and never ending competition in the digital world. It will help to understand the importance of balancing traditional & “cutting edge” practices of Marketing strategy. It will help develop organizations to inculcate market-led thinking to become more analytical, innovative and strategic. The Summit will help participants to discover what worked (and what didn’t) from specific real-world examples with leading brands, understand customers’ perceptions, needs and desires, and how they rated competition.

Some of the key topics in focus shall include: Navigating the Slowdown- Best Practises in Marketing and Sales; Building Smart Social Media Strategies; Big Data Strategies for Marketing; The Game Changer- Upgrading Sales Capability; Getting the most from your investments in Marketing and Sales; 360 Degree Marketing- Brand Strategy for a Changing World.

Move towards market linked gas pricing is a major and significant reform undertaken by the government in the context of energy security: Mr Vivek Rae, Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, India

Delivering the address at the “Energy Security Conference 2013” organized jointly by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Ministry of External Affairs, the chief guest, Mr Vivek Rae, Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India,  said, “It is important to deepen and strengthen Research & Development in energy. It is also important to undertake collaborations and capitalise on the synergies amongst the Ministries of Power, Oil and Gas and Renewable Enegy.” Emphasising that there is no policy paralysis in the Oil and Gas sector, he said, “One of the key decisions taken by the Ministry is putting in place a new formula for gas pricing in India which will become operational from 1^st April 2014. This is a step towards aligning the domestic natural gas prices with the global prices and nudging the gas price towards import parity prices. The Ministry is also working closely with operators and efforts are being made to streamline the decision making process.” He  also stressed on the need for putting in place a fiscal regime that promotes and encourages exploration and production activites as this will give returns in terms of royalty, tax revenues and import substitution. Highlighting some of the issues that are work in progress, he said, “The Ministry is currently working on making available adequate data on the sedimentary basins; skilling the exisiting work force and also harnessing the retired talent available in the country; authorising the private sector to prospect for shale oil and gas within the  exisiting contract; and evaluating strategies for stimulating the domestic manufacturing industry for oil rigs and LNG tankers in the country.” 

Highlighting three key global energy trends, Mr Prabhat Kumar, (ES & ITP), Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, said, “India will emerge as the biggest growth center of energy by 2020. While this implies that the Indian economy is likely to continue to grow, there are also questions on how we will pay for this demand given our strong reliance on fossil fuel imports. In addition, some of the biggest energy importers like the US are becoming energy exporters. Finally, the Middle East may become a key consumer of oil and gas and this may affect their export surplus adversely.” Stressing on the need to capitalize on the opportunities presented by these key developments, he said, “The Middle east region presents a huge opportunity for India as this region will be increasingly catering to Asia rather than the Northern Hemisphere. In addition, Sovereign wealth funds in these countries have grown considerably and India can look at collaborations with countries in this region to develop pipelines, petrochemical complexes, etc.  In addition, we can capitalize on the strong demand for human resources in this sector both globally and within India. We can invest in our human resources and equip them with the right skill set to enable them to undertake projects in other countries.”

Giving his perspective, Mr Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, Confederation of Indian Industry, in his welcome remarks said, “Energy Security at the broadest level, is primarily about ensuring the continuous availability of commercial energy at competitive prices to support economic growth and requires a strong focus on both strengthening the domestic energy sources as well as acquisition of energy assets overseas.