Jamshedpur: President A P J Abdul Kalam today (Feb 13, 2004) called for all-round endeavour by the industry and political leadership of the country to transform an 'industrial society' into a 'knowledge-powered society' to make India a developed nation by 2020.

"Today we have an industrial society. We need to graduate into a knowledge society in the next 10 years to achieve the dream of becoming a developed nation by 2020," the President said at a function in Jamshedpur in connection with the celebrations for completion of 75 years of industrial harmony at Tata Steel.

"The laws of development for the industry", Kalam said, was to achieve "competitiveness, quality and timely supply, while for the society, it was empowerment of the people on the basis of 'values, merits and quality'."

The President urged the society to be guided by the three basic ingredients of development -- values, merits and quality -- to graduate into the 'knowledge powered one'.

"Even in the political area, these principles will be very important in a knowledge society," he added.

On the other hand, for the industry, achieving competitiveness should be the highest priority followed by quality of products and timely supply.

Emphasising the need to adopt modern technology to be cost competitiveness, Kalam said training of the industrial workforce was important to achieve the goal. "The workers should have flexible skill having both hardware and software solution capabilities."

The President's stress on achieving cost competitiveness by the industry through technological up-gradation gained significance in view of the comments made by the INTUC (Indian National Trade Union Congress) President Sanjeeva Reddy, who was present on the occasion, that adaptation of new technologies was leading to a larger pool of unemployed workforce in the country.

"Competitiveness is the deciding factor. A developing country, aiming to become a developed nation, has to be competitive in industrial front to market its products in developed countries," Kalam said.

The President, who hailed the Tata Steel management and the Tata Workers' Union for having a harmonious relationship for 75 years, said, "It will continue as long as the company is guided by the vision of its founder Jamshedji Nusserwanjee Tata and legendary leaders like Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, who was the President of the Workers' Union during early 1930s."