by Shri N.C. Vasudevan, IAS, Director General, National Productivity Council

Overview of the NPC

The productivity movement in India is spearheaded by the National Productivity Council (NPC), which is a national-level organization under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. The NPC was established as a registered society by the Government of India. It is an autonomous, tripartite, nonprofit organization with equal representation from government, employers, and workers’ organizations, apart from the technical and professional institutions on its Governing Council. The NPC was set up in 1958 with the mandate to promote a productivity culture in India. Its mission is to develop, disseminate, and apply the knowledge and experience in productivity for promoting consciousness of and improvement in productivity, with the objective of strengthening the performance and competitiveness of the economy as well as of improving working conditions and quality of life.

The NPC provides consultancy and training and undertakes research in productivity, in addition to implementing the productivity promotion programs of the APO, of which the Government of India is a founding member. Over the years, the productivity movement has taken a number of focus themes as major areas of activities. A diagrammatic presentation of various services and activities undertaken by the NPC along with the APO since 1958 is given chronologically in Figure 1.

Major activities of the NPC include about 250 revenue-earning consultancy and research projects and about 300 training courses (general and customized) annually. Apart from facilitating Indian participation in over 100 APO projects abroad held each year, the NPC also publishes Productivity Journal (quarterly) and Productivity News (bi-monthly) and has tie-ups with a number of international organizations such as the APO, United Nations International Development Organization (UNIDO), UN Environment Programme (UNEP), International Management Development (IMD) Business School of Switzerland, etc. in the area of productivity and competitiveness.

The NPC also undertakes a number of international initiatives such as providing partner institute services in the preparation of the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook and through the National Cleaner Production Centre India, which was among the first five centers set up by the UNIDO/UNEP Cleaner Production Network and the first in Asia to host promotion of Green Productivity (GP) and cleaner production. The NPC has also established the UNEP–India Local Desk for Transfer and Dissemination of Sustainable Alternatives Network related to energy efficiency. The NPC implements APO Demonstration Projects on GP and Cleaner Production Circles for SMEs along with the Department of Science, Technology & Environment, Vietnam, and has established cleaner production centers with the assistance of state governments in India.

Activities and programs of the NPC are implemented by 150 full-time, highly qualified productivity specialists drawn from areas such as economic services, environmental management, energy management, technology management, process management, productivity awareness, agribusiness, human resources management, and information technology (Figure 2). Apart from the NPC’s headquarters in Delhi, these productivity specialists work from 13 regional professional management groups spread across the length and breadth of the country. To provide training on various productivity concepts and applications, the NPC conducts specialized courses on productivity at its Ambedkar Institute of Productivity located in Chennai.

Core competencies of the NPC cover total quality management, ISO9000, lean manufacturing, benchmarking, process management, restructuring and reorganizing enterprises, human resources management, total environmental management, solid and hazardous waste management, hazard analysis and critical control point, total productive maintenance, information technologyenabled services, knowledge management, energy management, and project management. The productivity movement spearheaded by the NPC along with the APO is aligned to offer multidisciplinary services for productivity improvement through interventions such as consultancy, training, promotion, and research.

As a result of consistent efforts by the NPC and the APO during the last five decades, the Indian economy has benefited enormously and has emerged from the stranglehold of poverty and underdevelopment to become a rapidly growing economy. India was primarily an agrarian economy in the 1950s. Over the years, however, it emerged as an industry- and service-oriented one. Currently, the share of agriculture in GDP is about 20% while that of the industry and service sectors is 26% and 54%, respectively. The contribution of the NPC and the APO to this turnaround of the Indian economy was substantial. Various rating agencies have ranked India as one of the most promising countries in the world in terms of economic development and growth. Even during the recent global financial crisis, the Indian economy exhibited substantial resilience and recorded GDP growth of 7.2%, second only to the People's Republic of China.

To give a further fillip to the national productivity movement, the NPC and APO, along with the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, will hold the Ecoproducts International Fair in Delhi, 3–6 March 2011. This fair will both promote eco-friendly products among Indian consumers and provide a platform to create awareness of eco-products and eco-technology while sharing ideas among a wide cross section of manufacturers, governments, international organizations, and the general public.