Does India Need a Radically Different Approach for Rapid Growth?

Dr. Chips participated on a panel focusing on measures needed to boost electronics manufacturing. He emphasized the need for co-creation and collaboration as a means to accelerate the pace of manufacturing infrastructure growth and to establish joint ventures and technology transfer process. Crucial to the success of this initiative would be policy measures that are conducive to such growth. Some highlights from the panel are cited from the article:

In a session titled “Make in India: creating a 100 million jobs by 2022,” moderator Mahendra Bapna, senior advisor at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Jodhpur, observed that for manufacturing to take off, India needs to “move beyond rhetoric and create a clear strategy and favorable policy environment and improve the ease of doing business.” He listed five important steps for the government: stop “tax terrorism,” improve infrastructure, reform labor laws, invest in technology education and skills development, and ease land acquisition. According to Bapna, the sectors of defense, electronics hardware, construction, health care and agro industries need to be topmost priority for policy makers.

Building on this, Makarand Chipalkatti, managing director of Dr. Chips Consulting, added that it is critical to also improve the ease of starting and closing a business. “This helps to de-risk decisions and results in faster setting up of manufacturing units.” According to C.V.R. Murty, president of IIT Jodhpur, a strong technical education system is an absolute imperative to boost manufacturing. “It needs to be run professionally and has to be student-centric and outcome-based, and not the current faculty-centric model,” he said.