‘The ‘Make in India’ campaign should be more than just a slogan’

Corporates have started responding to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’ campaign.

Karthikeyan Natarajan, Head, Integrated Engineering Services, Tech Mahindra, said in a statement, “The ‘Make in India’ campaign is a phenomenal initiative which leads India in a new direction by establishing a robust ecosystem for research and development growth. The Government’s initiative for manufacturing is accelerated by an increasing adoption of technology and increasing relevance of lean methodologies.”

Natarajan added that the country would reap benefits and shift to a new paradigm with regard to technology investments in R&D, supply chain, infrastructure, and high-quality manufacturing facilities across automotive, bio-medical, electronics hardware and aerospace and defence verticals.

He noted that there was an opportunity to reduce the carbon footprint as the country expanded its manufacturing ecosystem.

Dilip Chenoy, CEO, National Skill Development Corporation, said he welcomed the Government’s ‘Make In India’ campaign and added that the PPP model was successful for skill development.

“The NSDC has been able to establish this by providing skills to 3 million people till now. We have been active in the skill development space and are certain to contribute in the best possible way,” Chenoy noted in a statement.

Ramesh GS, Chairman, Layam Group, a recruitment service provider, said, “For making in India, the thrust should be to bring a mindset change, with the right attitude and proactive thought, skill sensitisation and upgradation and transformation in our labour laws.”

He noted that labour laws needed to be more progressive. In order to ensure its holistic implementation across India, Ramesh noted that each stage should be given top priority. “In this mission, we may form an apex body of National Manufacturing Skill Counsel, duly represented by each State, as well as respective Industries Departmental, Heads of the Government, under the direct supervision of the PM. Each State must have a target to build the concept of ‘Make in India’ as a progressive plan,” he said in a statement.

Harish HV, Partner, Grant Thornton India, noted that India desperately needed to grow its shrunken manufacturing sector to create jobs for its huge population, “particularly among the youth to prevent the demographic dividend from becoming a social disaster. The Make in India campaign is critical (for this).”

Harish said the campaign needed to be more than a slogan, and must become the key mantra for the Central and State Governments. “What we need is an ecosystem which encourages manufacturing, covering land availability, power and other infrastructure support particularly transportation, trust in entrepreneurs, leading to simplified procedures, so that doing business is easy, lower capital costs and a mindset of discipline among people about work,” he said in a statement.

Adding that it was not possible to make in India if the mindset was not one of discipline and adherence to rules, Harish noted that entrepreneurs who violated trust, in terms of taxes, wages, treatment of labour, pollution etc, needed to be given exemplary punishment.

Vivek Mehra, Executive Director, PwC India noted: “It is very heartening to note that the Prime Minister Narendra Modiji himself is taking steps to encourage manufacturing in India. This is not only necessary for growth in GDP, but absolutely essential to cater to our demographic profile.”

Adding that on the one hand the import regime has become very facilitative with the substantial lowering of customs duty, abolishing of importing licences and free availability of foreign exchange, Mehra said that on the other hand manufacturing continues to suffer from infrastructure bottlenecks, environmental clearances and an unfriendly tax regime.