Address at the Launch of the First School of Excellence Under the Aegis of Punjab Technical University (PTU)

I am indeed delighted to be here at the beautiful city of Chandigarh during the launch of the First School of Excellence under the aegis of Punjab Technical University. I recall that the Government of Punjab had announced a grant of Rs.6 crores to enable the PTU to start six new schools of excellence. I am glad that the first one in this series is the School of Total Quality Management and Entrepreneurship which is now being established in collaboration with the Gian Jyoti Trust through the formation of PTU's Gian Jyoti School of Entrepreneurship and TQM Society. The transformation of vision into mission by the Punjab Government within a year is a notable phenomena and I am sure the commissioning of other schools of excellence will also progress with the same speed. I would like to congratulate the Punjab Government, Punjab Technical University, the Gian Jyoti Trust and all other promoters of the school of excellence for creating this institution.

Contribution of small entrepreneurs

At present we are facing a situation in which a large number of youth after completion of senior secondary, graduation, post-graduation and from higher educational institutions are looking for mostly government jobs. I am confident that opening of such school of excellence will prove to be a significant departure from this situation as it would be working towards empowering the youth to become wealth creators and job providers instead of being job seekers. This is the real need of the hour. Recently attention has been paid to the subject of entrepreneurship over the past few years stemming from the experiences from many countries by economic analysts that small firms contribute considerably to economic growth and vitality. Moreover, many people have chosen entrepreneurial careers because doing so seems to offer greater economic and psychological rewards than does the large company route. Entrepreneurship has always been the tradition of Punjab. Recent experiences indicate that the economic progress of few countries particularly the developed countries is due to the contribution of large number of small entrepreneurs employing less than 50 persons in their establishments. We need such entrepreneurs in large numbers in our country for developing and transforming our village clusters into sustainable economic units.

Development of Entrepreneurs

The key characteristics required in an entrepreneur are desire, drive, discipline and determination. I am confident that the school of excellence will promote following important traits among the would be entrepreneurs :

(a) Vision and pioneering spirit.

(b) Being able to see possibilities where others do not.

(c) Always searching for new opportunities and challenges

(d) Being creative - 'able to think out of the box'.

(e) Constantly striving to do things better

(f) Confident about taking risks

(g) Proactive and focused on the future

(h) A good knowledge and skill base.

Total Quality Management

I have participated in many space and defence programmes. Putting a satellite in the orbit needs a large rocket system. Rocket system and the satellite put together will have atleast 50 sub-systems and more than 80 thousand components mechanical, electrical and chemical. To put a satellite in the orbit all the systems have to work to full performance requirements. Even one sub-system or one component fails mission will be a failure. Same is true with launching of missile systems. It has to reach the required target by flying thousands of kilometers. The message I would like to convey here is that those in the programme have to learn quality of a product has to be built in during the design phase and carried forward till the test phase. It has to be constantly improved. The man who designs and manufacturers must love what he does. Entreprenuers have to aim for total quality quality management that is quality design to production, testing leading to market. So this will ensure success of the product and system. I am sure the school of excellence will impart this lesson with real life experiences so that they succeed from the beginning.

I hope the school of excellence would aim to align the organizational management system, human resource management system and the total quality management system for promoting a successful TQM initiative by any enterprise.

Conclusion

As you are aware, our Prime Minister in his Independence Day announcements has declared a rural development programme called PURA - Provision of Urban Amenities in Rural Areas. It involves identification of rural clusters with growth potential and creating Physical Connectivity, Electronic connectivity, Knowledge connectivity and there by Market connectivity. I am sure many of the entrepreneurs who have excelled from this school will create enterprises in many PURA complexes in the country particularly in Punjab by 2005 and improve the lifestyle of our village community and be an active partner in Developed India mission.

My best wishes to all of you.