She means enterprise: A historic yr at FKCCI
In December 2025, the venerable Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) celebrated its centenary, marking 100 years of representing the pursuits of Indian business and commerce to the federal government. Based in 1925 in Calcutta by the then 31-year-old Calcutta businessman Ghanshyam Das Birla below the mentorship of Mahatma Gandhi, ICC performed an integral half within the freedom wrestle, as the primary organized non-governmental physique to function the voice of indigenous Indian business.
In 2027, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Trade (FICCI), additionally co-founded by GD Birla and at the moment the biggest enterprise group in India, will have a good time its personal centenary. In the meantime, nearer residence, an identical however older physique – the Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce and Trade (FKCCI) – quietly celebrated its a hundred and tenth anniversary final week. This yr’s festivities marked a watershed occasion; they had been presided over by a lady – FKCCI’s first girl president, Uma Reddy.
The thought of a consultant physique to advocate for the pursuits of enterprise is an previous one – the Marseille Chambre de Commerce was established in France as early as 1599. Surprisingly, the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce (GCC), Britain’s oldest, solely made its look in 1783, based within the aftermath of American independence by panicked Glaswegian retailers whose prosperity, constructed on the commerce in Virginia tobacco, was in jeopardy. One of many GCC’s high priorities was to fiercely oppose the East India Firm’s commerce monopoly with India.
India’s first tradesmen’s associations got here up in its thriving port cities. The Bombay Chamber of Commerce & Trade (BCCI) was the primary, in September 1836; its counterpart in Madras opened for enterprise per week later. It was the BCCI’s relentless lobbying that was largely liable for the constructing of the nation’s first railway (the Bombay-Thane line), and the passing of the Indian Publish Workplace Act of 1854, which unified all regional postal methods right into a centralized nationwide community.
The Bengal Chamber of Commerce got here subsequent, in 1853, and Cochin bought its personal Chamber in 1857. The primary of the 4 to have an Indian president was the BCCI, in 1959!
The nation’s fifth Chamber, the primary in a princely state, was established in Bangalore on Could 8, 1916, by the visionary dewan of Mysore, Sir M Visvesvaraya, with the complete assist of Maharaja Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV. The raison d’etre of the Mysore Chambers (in 1973, it was renamed FKCCI) wasn’t to signify Indian enterprise pursuits in opposition to British ones, however to institute an advisory physique that might assist information state coverage in the direction of constructing a sturdy industrial economic system. Its first president was WC Rose, an Englishman who had beforehand served as the primary supervisor of the (State) Financial institution of Mysore (estd 1913). After Rose stepped down in 1920, the Mysore Chambers has solely had Indian presidents.
At this time, FKCCI has almost 5000 direct members, drawn from commerce, manufacturing and repair industries throughout quite a lot of sectors; and 140 commerce associations, representing numerous specialist teams – the Digital Metropolis Industries Affiliation, for example— aside from the Chambers of each district in Karnataka. Every member comes with their very own distinctive challenges and desires – coaching applications, higher connectivity, improved infrastructure, revision of minimal wages; all of them should be well-represented by FKCCI.
It’s a tall order, however president Uma Reddy is unfazed. {An electrical} engineer who went solo proper after she graduated from the College Visvesvaraya School of Engineering in 1984, in an age when girls entrepreneurs had been virtually unprecedented, she has served on FKCCI’s managing committee for a number of years now, and understands the temporary. Plus, her stint on the PM’s council for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) has given her eager insights right into a sector she is especially eager about supporting. “It’s such an honour to steer a corporation that Sir MV based,” she says. “I’ll do no matter it takes to stay as much as it.”
(Roopa Pai is a author who has carried on a longtime love affair along with her hometown Bengaluru)
