Mysuru:  Financial inclusion doesn’t mean just having a bank account, but it has more to do with a wide range of financial services and security such as insurance, health care, education etc., said Udaya Kumar, Managing Director & CEO, Grameen Financial Services.

He was speaking after inaugurating the three-day 4th International Conference on ‘Economic Growth and Sustainable Development: Emerging Trends,’ at SDM-IMD on Chamundi Hill Road recently and said that India still has a large population that belongs to the bottom of the pyramid and also spoke at length on micro-finance and micro-lending.

In his keynote address on the second day, Founder and Chairman of GRAAM, Mysuru, Dr. R. Balasubramaniam threw light on the key managerial issues and economic problems prevailing in our country with special reference to the tribal communities. He drew up the threats and challenges to sustainable development and opined that ecological crisis, societal crisis and crisis of self are the barriers to inclusive sustainability.

Dr. N.R. Parasuraman, Director of the Institute, elucidated the brewing economic turmoil and inconsistent growth across the world. He also expressed his concerns on underdeveloped financial instruments in the market like derivates, hedge equities in India which has led to under-development of the economy.

Founder and Chairman of CAREERS 360, Maheshwar Peri, in the technical session, mainly dealt with the education system in India coupled with demographic dividends, threw light on the alarming growth of rate of the cost of higher education in India against the much lower growth rate of jobs over time.

On the third day, R.C. Jagadeesh, who began his oration talking about India’s strengths, emphasised that Indians are no doubt intelligent and rich with culture but are weak in fundamental business aspects such as quality of product, punctuality, etc. He substantiated his argument with personal experiences, before he concluded by saying that India is spiritually strong and by applying the same we could achieve heights.

There were a few other technical and track sessions that ran parallel during the three-day conference that received an overwhelming response in terms of quality research papers presented by academicians and research scholars, on the key managerial issues in economic development and sustainability.

Over 200 delegates from India and abroad attended the conference, according to a press release from SDM-IMD Director.