‘Upskilling a key to Karnataka’s $1 trillion economy aspirations’

Karnataka can overachieve this target provided we upskill close to half a million youth every year, according to Kamal Bali, the managing director and president of Volvo India Group.

Bengaluru: For Karnataka to achieve its goal of becoming a $1 trillion economy by 2035, the state will have to take multiple steps towards accelerating sustainable growth and upskilling, according to Kamal Bali, the managing director and president of Volvo India Group.

“Karnataka can overachieve this target provided we upskill close to half a million youth every year, increase the R&D spends, make the 900,000 registered MSMEs ESG compliant with access to market linkages, focus on building sustainable cities beyond Bangalore, and be the leader in clean energy as nearly 50% of Karnataka’s energy is (already) renewable,” he pointed out during his keynote address at the Confederation of Indian Industry’s (CII) Karnataka State Annual Meeting 2024 in Bengaluru.

He noted that India’s current economic growth is hinged on factors like structural reforms, digitisation of financial markets, financial inclusion and a commitment to tackle climate change.

During the same event, Hitachi Energy’s managing director and chief executive officer for India and South Asia, N Venu, noted that if India wants to achieve its targets to become net zero by 2070 and 50% renewable energy dependent by 2030, citizens and state will have to put in 3-4 times the current effort.

“The energy transition businesses wherever, whether in generation, transmission, distribution, or consumption, is a huge opportunity for us. From the energy standpoint, Karnataka has been leading by being the first in the country to adopt a renewable policy,” he said.

Venu was elected the chairman of the CII Karnataka State Council for the year 2024 -25 on Friday, after serving as the vice chairman the previous year. He replaced Vijaykrishnan Venkatesan, managing director of industrial technology provider Kennametal India.

During his address, Venkatesan stressed that sustainable growth in the state would mean not relying completely on software exports to drive export revenue and GDP contribution.

“For the overall development of the state, especially at a grassroots level, other sectors such as skilling, education, manufacturing, tourism, healthcare, and others are needed to boost our economic development, thus mitigating any risk, which usually happens when there is an over-indexing of one particular sector,” he explained.

Rabindra Srikantan, founder and managing director of engineering consultancy and solutions provider ASM Technologies Ltd, was elected vice president of CII’s Karnataka chapter.