Make in India, no doubt, is what is needed for a large country like India to become an economic power, if not super power. So the vision statement promulgated by the new prime minister of India is indeed very apt. Perhaps, the make in India concept was actively promoted by the government of India only during the initial years of independence. The thrust to this was totally forgotten in the post liberalization period after the 1990s.
During the Nehruvian era, make in India was really happening in India. Had the momentum maintained, India would not have been in the poor state of affairs as it stands today.
Many economists and those who go after macroeconomic figures may not agree that India is in a poor state of affairs economically. There are many masking statistics that hide the realities.
The astronomical growth of the software and information technology enabled services did much of the masking.
That has blinded the policy makers of India and caused the gradual destruction and deterioration of India's core manufacturing abilities. India never had full grown manufacturing abilities right from the beginning. It was essentially in the learning period. But before the learnings and the trainings could reap the benefits, the non-visionaries of India caused the whole thing to collapse.
The biggest handicap that India has is in the areas of producing sopisticated machine tools and equipment for secondary manufacturing.
Even some of the best public sector tools and equipment manufacturing companies were allowed to die their natural death by the policy makers for helping their international competitors. Best examples are the Hindustan Machine Tools Ltd (HMT), the Heavy Engineering Corporation Limited (HEC), The Hindustan Steel Construction Limited (HSCL). BHEL, BEL, and scores others.
There exists a few core equipment manufacturers in India even now, mostly in the private sector. But the fields in which they exist are limited and many of them are lingering to survive due to their incompetence to produce competitively. It is the vicious circle for the core manufacturing sector. Lack of skilled labor makes the manufacturing non competitive which in turn causes the industry to lose business and income. They are compelled to reduce the work force or pay less remunerative to the workers. The industry no more would be capable of attracting the best talents or to motivate the existing work force. The resultant is too obvious.
Let us consider one example: Suppose that an Indian businessman wants to set up a food processing industry. Many of the sophisticated automatic packaging machinery are not competitively available in India and are either to be imported or to be procured from sources that get them from outside. The costs involved for investment in these machinery and the costs of their operation and maintenance would naturally add to the product costs. If this cost is higher, the margins of profit that is obtainable from the agro product would be less and not very attractive.
On the other hand, because agro industry is not growing, there would be no incentive for any one to set up any agro industry machinery manufacturing facility in India. Once that is not happening, the core competency in this field remains poor within the country.
Now extending this logic to all other industries, we can easily find that India is at a disadvantage as far as make in India is concerned for most of the industrial products. The vicious circle keep perpetuating and it would not be easy to break it so easily. The situation can be changed only by strong governmental intervention and support.
Obviously, a Make In India website or department, is not going to solve the situation. No big industry or nation with the technological resources would not like to set up their shops and part with their knowldege and skills without they gain adequate confidence in the vision of the governement of India.
India has remained as an equipment purchaser and not an equipment producer. So far you have been getting the sophisticated equipment made elsewhere and only using those. Even the use of such equipment or technology also has not been efficient due to lack of competency at all levels.
Indians are good purchase masters. Every one is interested in shopping. But no one is ready to toil to make. Shopping or purchasing make every Indian feel like kings. The suppliers pamper the buyer by small gifts and commissions and Indians, at all levels, are very fond of those pampering! They have been used to it. How could they possibly say no to it now?
It happens at all fields. The competition for getting the purchaser's benefits have been so tempting that almost all the laws and rules made in India, knowingly or unknowingly, kill any quest for pioneering any new innovations. Indian working class and working engineers have already become technical clerks and are becoming alienated from the new technological developments in the core sectors. They simply lack the opportunity to prove their mettle!
The Indian administrative system is one of the colonial era. The world has changed much. But the Indian administrative system remains the same. There is absolutely no skill and expertise mobility across various functional levels. The Indian system works like frogs in the well and in water tight compartments. While managerial and administrative understanding and competency remain much faulted, there is no dearth of novices posing as 'I-know-all' experts in key decision making areas.
India produces millions of engineering graduates now, only to be employed in non core functions. I do not say that all of them are required for core engineering fields. But, when core engineering work remains non challenging and non remunerative, it would not be prudent to think that they attract the brilliant brains.
Graduate and post graduate engineers are not technicians. They are brains behind engineering designs, concepts and management. But on the work site, it is the skilled technicians that translate the ideas to actual work. Therefore it is essential that these two fucntions go hand in hand and in synchronization. India has been neglecting its skilled technical work force. Most of the existing manufacturing systems have migrated to other countries like China without any one really realizing.
To reverse that now is a herculian task. Given the easy going nature of Indians, the task becomes all the more difficult.
The growth and development of the aeronautical industry in the world is a saga of industrial innovation and creativity. The Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has been in existence in India for the past many decades. Could it do any thing substantial in these many decades? If not, why? Indian planners and policy makers should think about it?
What is the solution to come out of this? Would it be possible for India to do it? Only time would tell.
I have some simple suggestions to make this happen:
First and foremost, let the Indian government do some thing for the Indian engineers in the industry to work freely without administrative restaints that hold back their creativity. Allow Indian engineering entrepreneurs to manufacture new experimental projects for some years without meeting international standards. If you insist on this, that means you want only international players only in this field! They may or may not come to prouduce here. Even if they come they come under their terms and only where they find the advantage and not in all cases.
Let the Indian government give a few years tax holiday for those core Business to Business (B2B) industries for enhancing their work force. Give more incentives for those industries who pay better renumeration to skilled employees in the workforce.
Allow industries to set up skill training institutes. Allow them to function autonomously without the interference of the state and central governments including the HR ministry.
Allow industries to provide advanced training and award diplomas to graduate and post graduate engineers.
Allow industries to recruit their engineers only from those with advanced industrial training.
Let the industry be allowed to recruit academician engieers and let the engineering academy recruit from experienced industry engineers. Remove the compulsory requirements of PG and PhD for engineers from industry to move to engineering teaching and training fields.
There are more such things.
I request my learned readers to suggest more. Not that it would make our policy makers to act immediately. But it could be a beginning!