27 Mar 2019
It all started in 2007.
At the Incredible India@60 celebrations in New York, Professor C.K. Prahalad, management guru at University of Michigan, shared his vision of India@75 in 2022 as a country with economic strength, technological vitality and moral leadership.
Excited about this long-term strategy for economic development, CII adopted his vision on 8 May 2008. A pan-India visioning exercise was undertaken, involving consultations with diverse groups of people including Government, industry leaders, housewives, academics, students, and many others. Thus, was compiled the National Vision Document: India@75 – The People’s Agenda.
Ten broad areas were clubbed into seven themes of the National Vision Document:
Education and Skills
Technology and Innovation
Agriculture and Food Security
Business and Economy
Urbanization and Environmental Sustainability
Arts, Literature and Sport
Moral Leadership, Governance and Public Administration
To give this initiative a strong visual identity, a logo with eye-catching elements was designed. It comprised people in seven colours with arms raised symbolising effort and action and individuality as well as the seven themes/steps towards development. The arrangement of the people in two circles represents collaboration, anchored around a shared aspiration.
The two circles form a Charkha, a nationally recognisable symbol of individual effort and self-reliance, which when multiplied by millions of individuals, causes a revolution. This also connects India@75 with Mahatma Gandhi as the Father of the Nation whose ideals have held true through India’s development. The symbol has since then stood for unity in diversity and dynamism in moving forward.
The National Vision Document became CII’s guiding document as it worked towards creating an inclusively developed India by 2022.
To make this vision a reality, CII set up a robust organisational framework comprising
The India@75 Foundation to lead the work across sectors and across geographies
The India@75 Apex Council and a Committee
The India@75 Execution and Operations team
Bolstering the efforts of the Foundation were initiatives undertaken by CII under the four key pillars of CII’s work – policy advocacy, nurturing and enhancing competitiveness, connecting with society, and business development.
Volunteerism
To amplify the efforts and make it a truly pan-India exercise, one of the key enablers has been volunteerism, which encourages citizen participation.
The National Volunteering Grid (NVG) creates an ecosystem of structured volunteering in India, with ‘Count Me In’ and ‘Pro Bono’ to encourage congregation and collaboration in a cohesive manner.
Under the Theme of ‘Count Me In’, a National Volunteering Week (NVW) has been institutionalised since 2014, which is observed from 18 to 24 January every year. NVW has been supported by the Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports through the National Service Scheme (NSS) and the Nehru Yuva Kendra Sanghathan (NYKS), Ministry of Corporate Affairs, besides being supported by corporates, NGOs, educational institutions, organizations and individuals across India.
The Pro Bono programme helps create a strategic collaborative platform for industry and civil society as partners for India’s development.
The Journey So Far and the Impact
India@75 has gathered support and momentum over the years across a range of important stakeholders such as the Union and State Governments, corporates and civil society, moving from an idea to actual on-ground results.
It has found resonance with the Government, as in the ‘Strategy for New India@75’ document released by the NITI Aayog.
Some of the action points include:
Skillpedia, a web portal was developed by India@75, now managed by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.
Project Roshni, a project of the President of India implemented in the President’s Estate for creating sustainable urban habitats through capacity building of communities, partnering with India@75 Foundation and the Roshni Prachodaya Society. It won the Golden Peacock for environment conservation.
National Volunteering Week (NVW) achieved 2,50,000 hours of volunteering in NVW 2017 and reaching out to 1401 villages as a pilot for rural outreach. In 2018, the cumulative outreach touched 16.5 million people with 313,000 volunteering hours.
Three years remain for India to reach the milestone of 75 years of its Independence as a nation and the task ahead of us need to be actioned in an intensified manner. For CII, as we look to 2022, the agenda will be proactively driven to attain the aspirations over the intervening period and further. In line with this, the Theme for the CII Annual Meeting 2019 has been outlined as India 5.0: India@75 and Beyond.