Taking ‘Make in India’ Flag Higher

India’s manufacturing sector contributes to approximately 16-17% of the GDP and employs almost 20% of the country’s workforce. In a quest to make the country a manufacturing hub in the world, the Government of India rolled out its Make in India campaign. But the initiative to be successful requires the support of companies across industries.

During a panel discussion on ‘The Made in India Big Promise‘, at the ‘India Live 2023’ Summit in Mumbai, organised by Entrepreneur Media, and moderated by Punita Sabharwal, Deputy Editor, companies in the manufacturing space came together and shared their thoughts on the Government of India’s initiative and further steps needed to accelerate it.

Pradeep Krishnakumar, Co-founder and COO, Zouk said the importance of manufacturing has been realized over a period of time. “What started as a very unorganized and informal way of making is now more organized, and there has been an understanding of the quality, timely delivery and payment terms. Earlier, we used to feel very happy when everything was sold out, but now when we see customers waiting for our products ,we understand the power of manufacturing and how it is key for consumer brands like us to build out a large business.”

He further adds, “If you can value quality, after-sale support, it is valuable. Also, we also need to aspire for the level above. We should aim that every product that rolls out from our factory will be world class. Indian consumers also want world class quality at the right price. If there is alignment across the board, then sky’s the limit.”

Agrees Abheet Dwivedi, VP (Infra, construction & PSU), Moglix, “We need to aspire much higher. One of the major reasons for sluggishness in the manufacturing was that we always promoted SMEs and never thought about scale. But if we really want to achieve a large amount of exports, scale is important. SMEs operate at 30-40% capacity. We are happy to sell within India. But we need to aspire to sell outside India. We have to uphold the highest standards. We need to kill jugaad and incentivize proper processes and quality. Government is doing enough. It’s for all of us to respond now.”

According to another panelist Darshan Ghodawat, CEO and Managing Director, AVA Global Logistics LLP, Make in India is a great initiative but we as a country are not proactive on it. “We have seen a huge rise in services exports, but not the manufacturing one. Without manufacturing kickin in, employment will never be generated. Implementation has to be done. A lot of FDI is flowing into India. But I feel the ways of manufacturing have to change.”

Satish Shukla, Co-Founder, Addverb , who joined virtually said that robotics and automation can greatly help in manufacturing compete globally as well as help scale up exports. “If you want to scale very fast, robotics and automation are the only way to make your manufacturing competitive globally. And that’s where we have worked with companies and helped them scale their manufacturing. We cannot build India a manufacturing hub on the basis of currency or labour arbitrage. If you want reliability, quality, efficiency in your process and product. If you want to bring your cost down in the longer run, you would need to go for automation and need to adopt robotics.”