Exporting knowledge

MY BIG IDEA

K L Bhatia taught economics in Delhi University for over 25 years. But along the way he began to nurse a dream of opening an institute that would provide vocational training for the export trade.

That dream came true in 1991 when Bhatia used almost all his savings "" Rs 1 lakh "" to found the Foreign Trade Development Centre (FTDC). Starting with seminars, he moved on to long-duration diploma courses. From 150 students in its first year, the institute now has over 1,200, and has conducted over 550 seminars and training programmes.

I was born in what is now Pakistan but my family shifted to Delhi after Partition. My father had a modest business "" he was a shopkeeper and his main work was repairing watches. I went to a government school and then did my graduation in Economic (Hons) in 1959 from Delhi University.

For a time I moved from job to job "" including a clerical post with the Controller of Defence Accounts, and a job as a research assistant. But after doing my M.A. in 1965, I took up a teaching post at Delhi University's Deshbandhu College and I taught till 1992.

In fact, I even got scholarships from colleges abroad, in Texas and Canada. I went to Canada for a couple of months but the yearning to come back home eventually won out.

Right from the 1960s onward, I developed many contacts with people who were associated with exports or with international trade in some way or another. I maintained a keen interest in the subject and managed to accumulate a lot of practical knowledge on it over the years.

In fact, the thought had entered my mind a long time ago that there was a need for a good institute that gave practical training to those who wanted to get into the export business. But I wanted to consolidate my own knowledge base first.

The desire to keep learning and to not stagnate led me to do a Ph.D in International Economics, which I completed in 1983. Teaching kept me busy but I kept thinking about starting an institute.

Finally, in 1991, I pooled together my small earnings "" around Rs 1 lakh "" and started the Foreign Trade Development Centre (FTDC). We began on a very modest scale, by holding short-duration seminars. It was very much a one-man enterprise at this point "" I only had a peon helping me!

Our five-day-long Entrepreneurial Development Programme provided basic information on the export trade. But since the response was encouraging, I decided to start a longer-duration programme. We introduced a diploma programme in Export Management in 1992. This was a four-month course and we had 60 students in our first batch.

It turned out to be good timing because the launch of FTDC coincided with the dawn of liberalisation "" from 1991-92 onwards, there was a new craze to get into the export trade.

In 1997, we entered into an alliance with the Indian Institute of Quality Management to help meet the growing human resource requirements in export promotion. We introduced various long- and short-duration programmes with them, in cities like Chennai, Mumbai, Chandigarh and Jaipur.

I was also invited to Mauritius by the Mauritius Export Promotion Zone Association (MEPZA) to conduct a diploma in export management there. Incidentally, I've learnt a lot from my visits to other countries "" their perspectives on the export trade and so on.

Right now, I am most enthusiastic about our new diploma programme, a four-month course in merchandising, to be launched next month. This will cover topics ranging from international marketing and quality control to trade fairs and communication skills. We believe there is a need for trained merchandisers, especially in the fashion business.

There have been enormous developments in the field since I started "" today the garment export trade alone is worth Rs 30,000 crore. Our idea is to keep showing people what potential there is in exports, and also prove that you can attain proficiency even after just a four-month course.

My health no longer permits me to take as active a part in the business as I'd like to, but I'm always reading up on new developments in the field. The learning process never stops.