Industry Leaders Use Ceremony to Press Case for MSME Ambition
📍 Mumbai · April 18, 2026
🏭 ARISE · AWAKE · ACHIEVE
Mumbai’s Hotel Sahara Star on Saturday evening was not the venue for a routine leadership handover. The Bombay Industries Association’s 62nd Installation Ceremony — compact in ceremony, substantive in content — marked both a change of guard and a deliberate pivot in how one of India’s older industry bodies sees its own role in the country’s economic moment.
Outgoing President Hitesh Shah handed charge to Dr. Rajesh Doshi, Managing Director of Diagold Creation Pvt. Ltd., in the presence of diplomats, government officials, and a cross-section of Maharashtra’s business community. Vice President Ritesh Choksi delivered the vote of thanks. The evening also saw the signing of an MoU and the formal unveiling of the cover page of BIA’s revived institutional publication, Entrepreneur.
📊 MSME India — Key Numbers
7.5 करोड
एकूण MSME उद्योग
33 करोड
रोजगार निर्मिती
48%
भारताची निर्यात
31%
GDP योगदान
स्रोत: Anish Damania, JM Financial Ltd. — BIA 62nd Installation Ceremony, April 18, 2026
A President Who Came to Business the Hard Way
Dr. Doshi’s inaugural address was, by design, unflashy. A medical doctor who entered entrepreneurship not by choice but by circumstance, his opening was deliberately candid — and it landed. Founded in 1948, a year after Independence, BIA has accompanied India’s industrial arc across eight decades. Dr. Doshi’s presidency, he made clear, would not be custodial.
“Entrepreneurs are people who refuse to accept limitations. They create something where nothing existed before.”— Dr. Rajesh Doshi, BIA President 2026–27
His theme for the year — Arise, Awake, Achieve — was unpacked with uncommon precision. Arise, he said, means committing to a larger purpose beyond hesitation. Awake is about awareness of the potential in businesses, people, and the country. Achieve, crucially, is about execution — not just ideas.
His stated priorities are institutional: strengthening BIA’s structure and continuity; creating substantive member-facing learning and engagement forums; and equipping members for a world reshaped by artificial intelligence, global supply chains, and new export markets. “BIA must not simply be a networking platform,” he said. “It must become a growth engine for entrepreneurs.”
Dignitaries jointly light the ceremonial lamp to inaugurate the BIA 62nd Installation Ceremony at Hotel Sahara Star, Mumbai. The traditional lighting marked the formal commencement of the evening under the theme — Arise · Awake · Achieve.
The Numbers Behind the Narrative
Chief Guest Anish Damania — Managing Director (Group Relationships) at JM Financial Ltd. and Honorary Advisor to MITRA, Maharashtra’s state-level policy think tank — brought a capital markets lens to what is often a rhetorical conversation about MSMEs. His figures were blunt: India’s MSME universe spans 7.5 crore enterprises, 99% of which are micro-sized.
Chief Guest Shri Anish Damania, Managing Director (Group Relationships), JM Financial Ltd., addresses delegates at the BIA 62nd Installation Ceremony. The packed auditorium reflected the event’s significance for Maharashtra’s MSME and business community.
“The nation runs on you guys.”— Anish Damania, JM Financial Ltd.
His chosen topic, Scaling Without Losing Control, was well-matched to the audience. He drew on the example of a promoter who started a company with ₹1,000 in his pocket and today holds 51% stake in a firm with a market capitalisation of ₹1.2 lakh crore. His counsel was structural: capital discipline, governance systems that allow delegation without dilution, and technology adoption as non-negotiable rather than aspirational.
He also placed India’s MSME challenge in a global frame. In Japan, 99.5% of enterprises are MSMEs — contributing nearly 50% of GDP. “Even countries like Japan and Germany, both heavily industrialised and technology-intensive, are built on MSMEs.” The implication was clear: absence of ambition — not the MSME structure itself — is the constraint.
Built Small, Thought Big
Guest of Honour Surendrakumar Tibrewala, Managing Director of Fineotex Chemical Ltd., offered something rarer than advice — a credible case study. His address traced Fineotex’s journey from 400 metric tonnes of annual capacity in 2017 to 2 lakh metric tonnes today, with a market cap of approximately ₹2,600 crore, over 1.75 lakh shareholders, zero debt, and a cash reserve of ₹300 crore.
The company has since acquired a European entity in Malaysia and, more recently, True10 Technology, an oil and gas company based in Houston, USA. The operational lessons he distilled: speed in execution, R&D proximity, rigorous cost and inventory management — and, most pointedly, delegation.
“Never let the words small, micro, or medium live in your ambition. Always think big.”— Surendrakumar Tibrewala, Fineotex Chemical Ltd.
Why This Matters
BIA’s 62nd ceremony arrived at a moment when India’s MSME policy discourse is in flux — tariff realignments, the China-plus-one opportunity, PLI scheme uptake, and the looming question of AI-driven productivity all press simultaneously on businesses largely ill-equipped to respond alone.
That an industry association of BIA’s vintage is explicitly centring AI, global supply chains, and institutional reform in its presidential mandate is not incidental. It signals where the pressure points are. Whether BIA can convert that agenda into actionable programming — and not merely frame it — will determine whether Arise, Awake, Achieve becomes a record of intent or a record of results.
📸 Photo Gallery — BIA 62nd Installation Ceremony
✍️ Vijay Gaikwad | Krishi Parva | Mumbai
📅 Published: April 19, 2026
🏷️ Tags: BIA, MSME, Dr. Rajesh Doshi, Bombay Industries Association, Entrepreneurship, Maharashtra Industry, Hotel Sahara Star