Fitness improves quality of work and life: Vice President

Hyderabad: Vice President of India M. Venkaiah Naidu has stressed the need to create and nurture the culture of innovation in every organization to tap the individual and collective potential of employees.

Inaugurating the 33rd Convention of Quality Circle Forum of India, in Hyderabad today, he said it was the responsibility of the top-level management or officers to promote team spirit, encourage new ideas and empower employs to express their opinions freely. He observed that organizations must create an enabling environment to bring out the innate potential of every person to solve problems and not accept the status quo.

Pointing out that there was an urgent need to ensure work-life balance in people's lives, the Vice President expressed concern that the fast-paced, modern-day lifestyle was causing enormous stress and affecting people's health and personal life.

Naidu said that ensuring a healthy work-life to employees must become the key focus of organizations along with achieving their profits. "While one cannot tolerate negligence, indiscipline or irresponsibility at the workplace, it is also the responsibility of an organization to ensure that the atmosphere does not jeopardize the personal life of employees," he added.

Stating that a healthy lifestyle, including proper dietary habits, was a must for a happy life, the Vice President advised people to find adequate time to spend with the family. Also, it is important to make yoga and meditation a part of one's daily schedule. He also said that fitness improves the quality of work and life as well.

Naidu opined that it was important to engage our young and dynamic workforce in social service activities.

'One must realize that the country cannot make progress unless and until each and every section of the society is made a partner in India's growth story,' he added.

The Vice President also called upon manufacturers of various products to ensure that most rigorous quality control, quality assurance and quality management practices are adopted to maintain the highest quality of products. "Á product can withstand competition only if it maintains good quality", he added.

Naidu said that to make quality a way of life, courses in quality control and other aspects related to it should be introduced in schools and colleges. He said that he would suggest this to the Union Minister for HRD.

The Vice President said that an education in quality concepts can help foster lateral thinking and prepare students for the workplace of the future. By inculcating lateral thinking, the students acquire the ability to come up with need-based solutions to a given problem by thinking out of the box, he added.

The Vice President also stressed the need for ensuring quality in selection and election of public representatives for better administration, discourse and debates in legislatures, decisions in governance and ultimately for the overall development of the nation.

In this connection, he called upon all political parties to evolve a code of conduct for their public representatives at all levels from Panchayats to Parliament and said that there was a need to raise the quality of public discourse in the country.

Naidu emphasized that election of leaders should be based on 4 Cs - Character, Caliber, Capacity and Conduct and should not be based on the other 4Cs Cash, Caste, Community and Criminality.

Over 800 participants attending this convention and over 200 improvement projects are being presented in the convention.

The Chairman, Quality Circle Forum of India, Ch. Balakrishna Rao and P.S. Ram Mohan Rao, Former Governor and other dignitaries were present on the occasion.