Make India before 'Make in India'

By Dr Jitendra K Das

Make in India is not just a slogan but an attempt to bring the focus of an entire tion on a growth and development path. It is a very important component of a compelling vision that the new Government has painted before the people. From drift and despondency of previous few years, this new vision aims at not only enthusing the tion but also chalks a route map to the vision.

The whole reason for this orientation is employment generation. If planned well and executed as per plan, the employment potential is enormous. This initiative aims to increase the share of manufacturing to 25 percent of GDP by 2022 from the current 15-16 %. This is expected to result in the creation of 100 million jobs. Compared to BRICS’ nearly 6% of labour force in primary sector, 16% of Indian labour force is still in the primary sector. If India restructures its labour according to BRIC’s profile, the secondary sector must also grow and with this growth the employment opportunities would grow. The economic impact of manufacturing in India will go beyond direct employment. It will create jobs in the services sector and allied services like logistics, transportation, retail, etc. The demographic dividend can be encashed only if the manufacturing sector grows and if the quality and quantity of skill is able to fuel that.

Prima facie, it appears that the prime beneficiaries, in employment potential terms, are going to be the students of engineering, technologies, polytechnics and other vocatiol courses. As second and third order effects, there would be need for integration of best practices, assimilation of cultures, creating systems and structures for innovation, scalability as also maging business enterprises in a dymic and complex environment. In addition, entrepreneurial ventures in MSME space will play a crucial role in providing large employment opportunities at comparatively lower capital cost. Maging these enterprises will need business magers. Opportunities for business education will be enormous as a downstream effect. Business schools will need to tailor their courses to encourage entrepreneurship (through networking strongly with the entrepreneurship development ecosystem and networks) as also through a curriculum that addresses the changes mentioned above.

It will definitely throw up new start-ups but not just because of the announcement. The whole ecosystem for entrepreneurship needs to be redesigned, nurtured and developed. In the wake of ‘Make in India’, many small scale enterprises will be required to provide ancillary products and services to large manufacturing set-ups. A large portion of them will work in the technology solutions space and work towards back-end or front-end linkages for the manufacturers. Nurtured and executed well, this will provide enormous opportunities and employment potential. B Schools, of necessity, will have to orient their courses so that the students become aware of all possible contours that ‘Make in India’ may take. This would equip them, attitudilly and professiolly, to spot and evaluate opportunities and business potential therein.

Unfortutely, it is not going to happen overnight. tiol rejuvetion and transformation in a pluralistic society is a challenge. Making ‘Make in India’ a reality involves lot of preparatory work. As Yashwant Sinha, Fince Minister in the earlier NDA regime commented, to make ‘Make in India’ a reality we have to ‘Make India’ first i.e. eble the tion in terms of development indices and infrastructure so that India becomes a hassle free and preferred destition for manufacturing. Ports, roads, railways, freight corridors, power, communication, education, skill availability, health, sanitation etc all need investment and development as eblers to ‘Make in India’. A stable and fair tax regime, environmental clearances, legislative measures and state government cooperation also need to be pursued with vigour and sincerity. Of course, all these would take time but to attract investments these are the preconditions. The Government appears to be proactive on a few of these and, therefore, is seeking investments in infrastructure. The vigour with which the new Government is engaging with major economies of the world indicates that it is preparing grounds for such investments. Simultaneously, the ground within also has to be prepared, economically, socially and politically.

Top Headlines

No stories found.
Sentinel Assam
www.sentinelassam.com