Piramal Group vice-chairperson Swati Piramal, who is keen on more women in the knowledge industry, believes that Telangana can play a major role in facilitating the process by pursuing on a mission mode a project to encourage more girl students take up science.
Telangana could be leader for women in science, she said, suggesting implementation of a project in the State to have a million girls pursue science. “Making them positive towards Maths, Physics, Chemistry… it would be so wonderful,” she said in an interaction on the sidelines of BioAsia 2020 recently. Pointing out that it is a male-dominated industry, she said the number of women in pharmaceutical and life sciences industry in India was 14% while the global average is 28%. A small country like Lithuania has 57% of women in science, she added.
“We have to work much harder to get there. Fathers have a very important role... when they believe their daughters can do it,” she said, adding this is the State that will lead the way. Dr. Piramal said she also to FICCI FLO members on significance of the one million girls in science project.
Education is on the three verticals – healthcare and protected water, the others – on which Piramal Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the diversified group focused.
In the State, the Foundation has been working primarily in the areas around Digwal where Piramal Pharma has a manufacturing facility. It also works in collaboration with other foundations, a strategy that she said had worked well.
On whether economic slowdown has impacted the corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities of the industry, she said it definitely has. Since many of the projects are long term, be it health, education or water, they cannot be stopped and started at will. A collaborative approach made it easier to attract resources.
To queries on the challenges for Indian pharma industry in the wake of Covid-19 (coronavirus) outbreak in China and the consequent impact on sourcing of raw material such as APIs and KSMs, she sought to highlight how this is an opportunity for India to scale up domestic production.
