Industry 4.0 will change nature of jobs, says Narendra Modi

Allaying fears that technology will drive out jobs from the market, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday that the “4th Industrial Revolution” will create more opportunities while changing the nature of jobs.

Launching the World Economic Forum (WEF) Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution here on Thursday, the PM said the NDA government is willing to change policies to reap dividends of the fourth industrial revolution.

“Our diversity, our demographic potential, fast-growing market size and digital infrastructure has potential to make India a global hub for research and implementation,” he said.

Modi was hopeful that the country’s contribution to the next Industrial Revolution would be “astonishing”. “India was not independent when the first and second industrial revolutions happened. When the third industrial revolution happened, India was struggling with challenges of just attained independence,” he said. Even as it is feared that Artificial intelligence (AI) will take away many jobs, the PM maintained that AI, machine learning, Internet of Things, blockchain and big data hold potential to take India to new heights. He added that tele-density has increased to 93% and nearly 50 crore Indians now have mobiles.

“Some people are worried that the advancement of technology will have negative impact on jobs but the reality is otherwise. The Industry 4.0 will touch those aspects which still remain untouched so far. It will change the nature of job and create new opportunities,” he said.

Over 120 crore Indians have Aadhaar, the Prime Minister said, adding that the work to connect all the 2.5 lakh village panchayats with optic fibre would be completed soon. He also took a subtle dig at the performance of the UPA government on this issue and pointed out that in 2014, only 59 panchayats were connected with optic fibre while at present 1 lakh are connected.

The WEF’s new Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in India would aim to bring together the government and business leaders to pilot emerging technology policies.

The centre, launched by Modi, would be based in Maharashtra and it has selected drones, artificial intelligence and blockchain as the first three project areas, the WEF said.