IIA President Speach

Ladies and Gentlemen,

"Intizar ki ghariyan khatm huin,"

We are fortunate to have two great personalities with us today. Bharat Ratna Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the former president of India and His Excellency Shri B. L. Joshi, the Governor of UP. We have been able to get constant support of His Excellency in the past. This is our third meeting with him within10 months and every time we met him, we felt blessed and enlightened.

Friends our Chief guest, A pre-eminent scientist, a gifted engineer, an iconic entrepreneur, a true visionary and over and above a humanitarian in every sense - our Mentor, Guide & Philosopher, Bharat Ratan, Dr.A.P.J. Abdul Kalam ji is with us. Let us welcome our chief guest and guest of honor along with the dynamic and pragmatic administrative head of Uttar Pradesh Shri Atul Gupta ji with a standing ovation!

We all love Dr. Kalam for his great achievements, simplicity, righteousness, teachings, distinguished statesmanship and nationalism !

It has been a cherished dream of all my fellow entrepreneurs to meet and listen to Dr. Kalam. Sir, you have overwhelmed us by agreeing to be with us today and to address Micro Small Medium Entrepreneur (MSME’s) - a vibrant society of unsung heroes. The entrepreneurs have traveled from far away places to be inspired, charged and motivated by you.

Students from IIM, Jaipuria Institute of Management, IIT, other different management and technical institutions and Lucknow University are a part of the audience. We have deliberately brought them with us in this convention to motivate them because we in the association feel that the new generation is not coming forward to venture into entrepreneurship. Your vision 2020: India growing into a Developed Nation, can only be fulfilled with this.

A little about IIA...
Indian Industries Association, popularly known as IIA, is celebrating its Silver Jubilee this year. During these 25 years, IIA concentrated its efforts on the promotion and development of MSME’s and has thus grown into a strong family of more than 5000 MSME members. Today, IIA is playing an important role in formulating policies for the growth of MSME sector both at National & State level. I had the opportunity to represent IIA as a member in the Prime Minister’s Task Force on MSME which has submitted its final recommendations recently.

We the entrepreneurs contribute 40% to the total productivity, 45% of the total export, 8% to total GDP and provide jobs to more than 60 million people of the country. We help in the upliftment and improvement of socio-economic conditions. This is one of the fastest growing sectors which has helped India come out of the recent economic meltdown.

As entrepreneurs, we have the capacity to reduce the rural and urban divide to a thin line.

Friends, I would like to share an experience of our first meeting with Dr. Kalam, when a delegation of IIA met with him in Delhi on 20th August late in the evening at his residence.

We saw a super master in him when a young entrepreneur was introducing himself and told that he has just joined his fathers business, The Master said, Remember This: PROBLEMS ARE EVERYWHERE, DON’T LET PROBLEMS BE YOUR MASTER, MASTER YOUR PROBLEMS, DEFEAT THEM AND SUCCEDE. And asked him to repeat, when he fumbled, the master said listen me again; He again repeated PROBLEMS ARE EVERYWHERE, DON’T LET PROBLEMS BE YOUR MASTER, MASTER YOUR PROBLEMS, DEFEAT THEM AND SUCCEDE and asked him to repeat and when he again fumbled the patient master said OK listen me again and repeated again and asked the young entrepreneur to repeat again. When he repeated it correctly, the master said don’t forget it.

Sir, we love you not because you teach us to see big dreams, not because you ask us to think BIG but because you make us believe that WE CAN DO IT ! We assure you that we shall make every endeavor to realize your dream of a developed Nation.

Thank you !