Dinesh Kamath's Editorial (IMC deserves an award) that was published in Newsband

IMC deserves an award

Navi Mumbai branch of Indian Merchants Chamber (IMC) is doing a yeomen job. It is doing a great service to Navi Mumbai, the city of 21st century. It will soon establish many Skills Development Centres in the twin city for catering to the specialized needs of various sectors of the industry.

This Chamber deserves to be lauded for the role it is playing in development of Navi Mumbai. It is great to know that Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation will extend its full support to the Chamber in its endeavour to develop the city.

Establishing of Skills Development Centres is a great idea. It is very important to make labourers study and to upgrade their skill sets by keeping them abreast of the latest technological innovations. The Chamber does not ignore the existence of senior citizens in the city. It is aware of the fact that there are about 2 lakh senior citizens in Navi Mumbai itself. The chamber is looking forward to analyze this situation in totality and create opportunities for everyone.

Thus the Chamber has decided to take up a few projects, including the establishment of IMC Skilled Development Centres in Navi Mumbai and other cities to upgrade skills in various faculties under the National Skilled Development Scheme of the Central Government. In addition, it has also decided to conduct Free Coaching Classes to poor students to prepare them for Board examinations and other competitive entrance examinations.

The Chamber is also trying to make the authorities aware of the fact that Navi Mumbai urgently needs urban infrastructures to cater to the international airport project, which is coming up here. At present, Navi Mumbai's down town does not have a proper road connectivity with the Airport to ensure, fast and speedy transportation. It also lacks proper water transport, Trans-harbor connectivity to South Mumbai. The new airport-linked infrastructure projects should benefit the local population, trade and industry, and should provide them jobs and business opportunities. The 28-km long stretch of the Thane Belapur industrial belt in Navi Mumbai contains 4,000 small, medium and large industries, served by poor quality infrastructure, which include internal roads, streetlights, and drainage. It is necessary to improve the infrastructures and undertake their periodic maintenance.

In one of its recent seminar the IMC informed that agencies like CIDCO and MIDC have earmarked some sites for setting up IT Parks. Since the IT industry creates huge job opportunities, it is necessary to offer additional industry-specific incentives to attract entrepreneurs to the IT Parks. There were frequent breakdowns in the activities of JN port due to strikes, which cause huge losses to exporters and importers. The JN port was created to decongest the Mumbai port and also to create modern container facilities. But this purpose is being defeated by frequent spells of agitation by PAPs (project affected people) and frequent breakdown in transport systems.

Navi Mumbai chapter of IMC is expanding its activities and its presence in Navi Mumbai area. The Chamber has been competently addressing the complex problems faced by the trade and industry through effective representations to various government bodies. Since IMC is the only leading business chamber of Navi Mumbai, it should get proper representation on the local Government and other civic authorities such as NMMC, CIDCO, POLICE, MTNL and MSEB.

All these above points were dwelt with in a recent seminar organized by IMC. The Chamber is indeed doing a noble job by making residents of Navi Mumbai aware of the present state of affairs in the city. IMC indeed deserve an award for the role it is playing.