Calling on management students to contribute towards the improvement of cities, economist Isher Judge Ahluwalia on Thursday said e-governance models have to be implemented in more cities and this requires the participation of management students from institutes like the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB).
Addressing students at IIMB’s 39th convocation, Ahluwalia, who is the chairperson of the board of governors of the Indian Council for Research and International Economic Relations (ICRIER), said, “e-governance with back-end integration has contributed greatly to services like getting birth and death certificates, building sanctions, paying property taxes and utility bills. It needs to be implemented in other cities like how it is being done now in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai and Surat.
“The capacity to plan and manage things at the local level with the state government’s support and human leadership with technology has played a major role in this transformation,” she observed.
Ahluwalia said the recent slowdown in growth can only be changed through appropriate policies. Holding the view that there will be growth irrespective of which government is in power, Ahluwalia said there is no uncertainty with respect to elections. She said developing cities was a way of speeding up the urban growth process.
Biocon chief Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw said, “Although the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls have created an ‘uneasy air of anxious uncertainty’, this phase will pass and soon we will have a new government to lead us into a brighter future.”
She said institutes like IIMB can play a transformational role in giving new development and growth models. “We also need to use technology to shift from unskilled jobs to those that rely on skill development,” Mazumdar-Shaw added.
Nearly 541 students passed out of IIMB from various programmes like the flagship post-graduate programme in management and public policy and management.