MANUFACTURING- MAKE IN INDIA & MADE IN INDIA

                                                            Bikash Choudhury

Prime Minister made a strong pitch for the Indian manufacturing sector in his maiden National address from the ramparts of the Red Fort in New Delhi. After a long time an Indian Prime Minister Spoke like a passionate activist—make in India and made in India. There was a National Symposium on Manufacturing Best Practices at Bhubaneswar recently with intent to exchange ideas on best practices among Union/State Govt. and Indian Industry. It was agreed that Indian Manufacturing Sector has completely failed the domestic economy against a potential of being the power house of Global Manufacturing Industry. Opinion varied about the probable reasons of such monumental failure—some believed it was the difference between ‘knowing and doing’ and some others thought ‘we lacked focus on manufacturing’ while a section professed ‘ it was a question of mindset which we missed’. Union Govt. is trying its best to be proactive facilitators for our nascent manufacturing to thrive while the High Interest Regime of our Central Bank throwing spanner on growing enthusiasm for investment in the domain. The consultants are gung ho about India becoming the Germany of the East in manufacturing; that could be a long shot at the moment but not an entirely impossible dream. Indian Industry should get together to modernize our agriculture sector that could spur the demand for manufacturing and lift the sector from current depression. Our central /state Govt. should persuade our corporate sector to adopt one district each and invest in soil testing laboratory, farm equipment, farm consultants, ware house and food processing centers to create value in rural landscapes that would eventually travel down to the manufacturing sector.

India was at the top of manufacturing sector once upon a time; we just need to revisit and renew our old tradition of excellence in manufacturing. Konark Temple in Odisha and Khajuraho in Madhya Pradesh stands for architectural grandeur of those times and the same could stand for excellence in manufacturing process, engineering and logistic capability and highest degree of Project Management skills. We need to do the following to give a leg up to the domestic manufacturing. Distributed Manufacturing: We need to identify products, the components of which could be mass produced in a cluster of cottage Industry in rural/semi urban areas well connected by rail/road to reduce manufacturing cost substantially through labor arbitrage and overheads of a large factories. We need to link the skill development with the skill and competency requirements of clusters of cottage industries. We need to tap a large mass of educated/skilled home makers in urban centers with part time jobs in manufacturing sector by designing and locating small production centers linked to the available skill sets in respective urban areas. We need to identify/design products that have huge demand globally.