Minister of State, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Monday inaugurated the Day 2 of one of its kind Future of Work exhibition under 3^rd Education Working Group (EdWG) meeting. 

The inaugural ceremony was also graced by the august presence of Shri Atul Kumar Tiwari, Secretary, MSDE; Mr R Dinesh, President Designate, CII and Executive Vice-Chairman, TVS Supply Chain Solutions and Mr NSN Murty, Partner, Deloitte.

While addressing the gathering, Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that the conference is focusing on intersection of logistics, coastal economies and sustainability and is integral in the context of skilling in coastal economies.

He further said that logistics will be an area full of opportunities for young Indians in the coming years, as much as Semiconductors, electronics, and Information technology. It will have huge scope for investment, entrepreneurship and employment.

The Minister highlighted that this is an interesting time for the world, representing opportunities and challenges and in this context, India has become the fastest growing nation of the world. And India is being looked upon by the world with lot more respect, he added.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar said the world is looking at resilient logistics and trusted supply chains, moving away from risk and moving to trusted resilient economy.

With this, the focus and discussion on logistics is important in coastal states like Odisha. Citing the example of mobile phones production the Minister said in 2014, 82% of mobile phones consumed in India were imported, in 2022, almost 100% mobile phones consumed in India are manufactured in India.

In 2014, India used to export almost zero mobile phones and this year alone, India has exported Apple phones, Samsung phones made in India to the tune of about 11 billion dollars.

One of the arguments for India for many decades has been, that India did not have a viable market and capacity to become a global manufacturing hub as logistics cost of doing business in India was not competitive, today global majors are manufacturing semiconductors,  electronics, mobiles and many more products in India, exporting and selling in India as well as the underline logistics ecosystem has become more efficient, he said. 

He further said that the Narendra Modi government’s programmes like Gati Shakti, National Master Plan for Multi-modal Connectivity, will create modern logistics ecosystem that will help India emerge as a global hub for blue economy products, food, and agricultural products.

Emphasizing that the future is about skilling, upskilling and reskilling, the Minister urged the students present at the conference to focus on acquiring skills, as that will increase the prospects of their employability. “As our Hon. PM says, Skilling should always remain a continuous process,” he added.

After the inaugural ceremony, the Minister visited nearly 70 exhibitors and lifted their morale by appreciating their efforts.

The exhibitors included premier institutes and organizations from diverse sectors such as MeitY,  National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), NIESBUD, UNICEF, NCERT, NIT Rourkela, IIT Bhubaneshwar, IIM Sambalpur, CV Raman Global Institute, Odisha based start-ups and many more, displaying technologies that will drive the future of work with constant innovations in modern workplace, future skills, and innovative delivery models.