R&D push key to Make in India

Now ‘Make in India’ means a red carpet for foreign companies and the foreign direct investment coming with own technology and knowledge managers. Indians will be either clerks or peons while foreigners will be ‘Making in India.’

We no more need Union Carbide (Bhopal) or Enron (Mumbai) which destroyed environment and economy of India. UC used their technology to produce pesticides, which killed thousands of people without any liability. Enron made business out of our fuel and pushed us into enormous losses. Are we totally in the reverse gear?

‘Make in India’ is most interesting concept aimed at boosting manufacturing in India. If it means that foreign companies should come to India and manufacture or invest and produce in India, it is better than “bring and sell in India or export your goods to India.”

India was looked as a wealthy resourceful centre when British and other Europeans ‘discovered’ and descended on it to exploit that. Now after globalisation, India is considered a huge market by world manufacturers. Its 127 crore people, with a big chunk of middle class, are consumers ready to purchase. They are not at all human beings and never the citizens, but mere purchasers.

For foreign producers, any nation is market, law & regulation is undue interference, human being is a consumer, economy just a business, governance is nothing but facilitating business. Then and now India is not being considered a nation. Mahakavi Gurajada Apparao said a nation was made up of people and not geographical borders. But, thanks to globalisation, the nations are now reduced to mere market places.

Against this background, the call for ‘Make in India’ is quite relevant and most needed. Does this programme mean that India should manufacture or call foreign companies to come to India and assemble or manufacture? This is better than “bring and sell or export your goods to India.” It is not just ensuring a smooth sailing for investors, by setting up a dedicated cell to answer queries of business entities within 72 hours, closely monitor all regulatory processes to make them simple and reduce the burden of compliance.

PM and several CMs from Telangana and Andhra rolled out red carpets, inviting MNCs and other industrial corporations to consider India not just as a market but as a manufacturing hub. With the largest number of the youth of world in India, and every third person with a graduate degree looking out for a job, manufacturing in India is not a bad idea. It is the need of the hour.

Industrialists felt challenge is to make manufacturing fashionable. They want radical change in scrapping rules, and that regulations that put speed breakers should be removed. Private sector wants drastic reduction of the interference from the government and trust-based process rather than suspecting the industrialists.

In fact, the small and medium industries can innovate, produce and create a big employment.SMEs can produce 75% of employment requirement at cost lower than large industries. Today, 9,75,000 SME companies are on social networking websites.

They help in industrialisation of rural and backward areas, thereby reducing regional imbalances, assuring more equitable distribution of national income and wealth. Financial as well as regulatory support must be provided to micro SMEs.

Manufacturing and GDP

It is reported that “the differentiator between developed and developing economies is majorly seen to be the contribution of organised manufacturing to the GDP. It is devastatingly low in India; it accounts for only 16% of GDP, while China is already receiving one-third of its GDP from manufacturing. The share of Indian manufacturing in the worldwide markets is also pitiable at 1.4%, while China has already zoomed to 13% plus from a level of 2.9% just 20 years back.”

Issues and challenges

It is said that projects worth Rs 7 lakh crore are stuck due to red tape. The Ease of Doing Business Index, which tracks the relative easiness of setting up operations in the country, reveals the same fact about rampant red tape and lax governance in the country. India is placed at 134th position with countries like Uganda, Kazakhstan and Cyprus ranking above us. A lot of projects never take off from the paper they are inked on, and remain stale headlines in some forgotten newspapers.

Transparency & E-delivery

Intellectual properties, research and development grants, a market-friendly atmosphere with transparency and focus on e-delivery of services are all part of infrastructure which we can start to build right away, instead of waiting for the disbursement of hundreds of crores from the Union Budget every year.

Private and foreign companies need to invest more on research and development. They do it for their profit. Who will build technology and knowledge for the nation? It is the duty of the rulers to invest in R&D, without which ‘Make in India’ cannot be realised. We are showcasing our ‘market’ of teaming millions of young students and inviting foreign education sellers. We are too crazy about it.

We blame the industry for not giving young graduates a chance to work; only 10 to 15% are employable. We boast that we have world’s largest youth in India. Recently we have amended law to deal with 16-18 age group youth as adults if they commit heinous crimes. Media, whose ownership is shared by foreign anti-Hindu religious bodies and corporates, can manufacture consent for anything. It paved way for destruction of youth by forcing Parliament to pass this retrograde law.

This law does not help juvenile criminal of Nirbhaya to suffer any new punishment, as it could not be retrospective. Instead, it criminalises the future childhood, killing the youth of forthcoming generations. Children commit crimes because of poverty, company of criminal adults, lack of education and becoming child labour. Culprits are society and government.

Focus never comes back to the quality and characteristics of the kind of training and education people receive. 75% of IT graduates are deemed ‘unemployable’, 55% in manufacturing, 55% in healthcare and 50% in banking and insurance, as pointed out in a report produced by FICCI and Ernst and Young, called Higher Education in India: Vision 2030.

For posts of peons, PhD holders are competing in India. Uttar Pradesh government has received 23.25 lakh applications, including from 250 PhD candidates, for 368 posts of grade IV staff (peons) at the state Secretariat.

In 1950, the Constitution mandated free and compulsory education for all in 10 years. Statesman of this country ignored it, and invested huge amount in higher education. Primary and secondary education was privatised by default. Higher education was nationalised rightly, but now government is gradually withdrawing from higher education. Universities are being starved.

Recently, the Article 21A is added to provide free and compulsory education up to 9th class. 25% seats in private schools are reserved for EBC groups. This is partial nationalisation of private education. The field is left open to private commerce in education. Now red carpet is being laid for foreign universities. Hence, developing indigenous knowledge and technology is almost ruled out.

Gandhi wanted teacher’s autonomy and basic education for all. He did not want either collector or management of school to decide curriculum, but teacher alone. The administrators, rulers and officers cannot decide the contents of education. As British collectors decided school curriculum and that blocked independence movement, Gandhi spread the thought of education autonomy which would operate as a tool for fighting for independence. Charakha and basic education are his tools of Indianising education and economy.

Now ‘Make in India’ means a red carpet for foreign companies and the foreign direct investment coming with own technology and knowledge managers. Indians will be either clerks or peons while foreigners will be ‘Making in India.’ We no more need Union Carbide (Bhopal) or Enron (Mumbai) which destroyed environment and economy of India. UC used their technology to produce pesticides, which killed thousands of people without any liability. Enron made business out of our fuel and pushed us into enormous losses. Are we totally in the reverse gear?

(Based on author’s address at 37th National Conference of Public Relations Society of India, held in Ahmedabad on 27th December 2015)