State, market should reinforce each other: Maran

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, APRIL 7. Pursuit of ``suitable economic reforms on every front'' instead of being ``prisoners of the past'' is the solution to mass poverty in India, the Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Mr Murasoli Maran, declared here today.

``I do not believe in laissez faire nor in unbridled market economy, because there are different kinds of market economies,'' he said.

Presenting the Mother Teresa Award for Corporate Citizen- 2000, instituted by the Loyola Institute of Business Administration (LIBA), to Orchid Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Mr Maran said India should evolve a ``new paradigm of social responsibility'' suited to a developing economy.

``We cannot ape the Western model, where the state and the market are considered to be mutually exclusive entities, each one pursuing its independent agenda. Neither can we adopt a radical pattern based on totalitarianism and absence of freedom where the state is glorified and the market is marginalised, a system which has proved to be a failure``, Mr Maran said. The state and the market should reinforce each other in working towards societal transformation by means of which ''blatant, glaring and unacceptable inequalities`` were bridged in a shorter time-frame.

Mr. Maran said Mother Teresa, who was an ``angel of mercy,'' was herself a ``genius in organisational effectiveness'' and could offer ``a lesson or two'' to managers. Through her own example and utterances, she built up a network not merely of organisational efficiency but of profound commitment and dedication among a vast number of people spread all over the globe.

Corporations, public or private, which drew from society a wide range infrastructure and human resources and used them for profitable operations, owed a debt to it. First they had to be good corporate citizens, paying their taxes and observing high standards of environmental protection, product safety and energy efficiency. Above all else, corporates must ''ensure that they do not further deepen the divide between the rich and the poor and must contribute towards improvement of the qualify of life of the poor in their neighbourhood,'' Mr. Maran said.

Mr. Justice S.Mohan, former Judge of the Supreme Court and chairman of the Teresa award selection committee, presided. Dr A.Besant C.Raj, management consultant and member of the committee, detailed the award criteria and the selection process. He said that besides conferring the corporate citizen award (the third in the annual series) on Orchid Chemicals year 2000 in view of the company's commitment to community development, environment and rural uplift, the committee chose Nicholas Piramal India Ltd and the Forbes Marshall group for award of a certificate. Mr. C.Raghavendra Rao, who received the award on behalf of Orchid, called for cooperation among corporates, the Government and voluntary organisations for promoting social upliftment programmes. Mr Darius Forbes and Mr Walter Tan received the certificates on behalf of the Forbes group and Nicholas Piramal, respectively.

The Rev.Dr V.Joseph Xavier, Principal, Loyola College, said the award honoured companies which had distinguished themselves by their outreach programmes and contact with and commitment to communities in their neighbourhood. The Rev.Dr Louis Xavier, Director, LIBA, said the award would not have materialised but for an endowment instituted by Dr M.A.M.Ramaswamy, Pro- Chancellor, Annamalai University.

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