Mr. Shiv Kumar, President- Business Development and Marketing of Mittal Corp Limited visited IIM Indore on August 26, 2015. He interacted with participants and faculty at IIM Indore under the Economic Lecture Series, which has been a regular feature since January 2014. Mr. Kumar delivered a lecture on Public Sector and Family Run Private Sector- Challenges and Relevance. Prof. Siddhartha K. Rastogi, Faculty, IIM Indore delivered the welcome speech and introduced Mr. Kumar.
In his insightful speech, Mr. Kumar discussed about how the need of public sector was felt after independence and the challenges faced by the manufacturing industries, especially steel sector. Mr. Kumar said that iron ore was available in the country, yet no one was able to decide the right cost for the same. Hence, India was one of the cheapest source of iron ore. However with the opening of Rourkela, Bhilai and Durgapur Steel Plants, and with the Iron Steel Control Act being passed by the government, steel industry moved towards privatization and got profit oriented.
Sharing his personal views about advantages of public sector over private, Mr. Kumar said that learning and enhancing skills is easy in public sector. In private sector, one gets hired for only one particular job or skill. But in public sector over the years, one gets to learn a lot about all the departments and other skills. He also mentioned that public sector has a particular working pattern and procedures which are followed. It is a fearless job and even today people enjoy working in public sector for a life-long job. However, private sector pays you more, Mr. Kumar said.
Concluding his speech, Mr. Kumar mentioned that as per the geological survey we have abundant raw material sufficient for the coming 200-300 years, the ignorance of the bankers and missing link between the industry and the raw material is creating a problem. The industries need to create a better working plan and procedure which can help maintain the economy and the industrial sector of the country.
The workshop was attended by students, staff and faculty of IIM Indore.