8 years of ‘Make in India’ Programme

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    • ‘Make in India’ recently completed 8 years since its inception.

    More about the news

    • Make in India, the flagship program of the Government of India that aspires to 
      • Facilitate investment, 
      • Foster innovation, 
      • Enhance skill development,
      • Build best-in-class manufacturing infrastructure,
      • Protect the intellectual property,
      • Make India digital,
      • Create healthy relationships with various countries,
      • Provide employment opportunities.
    • “Make in India” had three stated objectives:
      • To increase the manufacturing sector’s growth rate to 12-14% per annum;
      • To create 100 million additional manufacturing jobs in the economy by 2022;
      • To ensure that the manufacturing sector’s contribution to GDP is increased to 25% by 2022 (later revised to 2025).

    Review of ‘Make in India’

    • Accomplishments: 
      • Ministry of Commerce & Industry said that the program, which is aimed at self-sufficiency or being ‘aatmanirbhar’, has substantial accomplishments across 27 sectors, including strategic sectors such as manufacturing and services.
    • Attracting record FDI Inflows:
      • In the first year of the ‘Make In India’ scheme, FDI inflows stood at $45.15 billion. 
      • The year 2021-22 recorded the highest ever FDI at $83.6 billion and India is on track to attract $100 billion FDI in the current financial year,
    • Steps taken to ensure ease of doing business:
      • In order to simplify the various aspects of doing business, the government has taken various steps to increase the ease of doing business in India. 
        • A Phased Manufacturing Programme along with reduction in corporate taxes, 
        • Public procurement orders and 
        • The National Single Window System (NSWS), 
        • These programs have increased the ease of doing business. 
    • Improving toy exports, reducing imports:
      • Custom duty on toys:
        • In an attempt to reduce the import of foreign made toys and enhance India’s ability to manufacture toys domestically, the  Basic Custom Duty on the import of toys was increased from 20 percent to 60 percent. 
      • Initiatives such as:
        • The India Toy Fair 2021, Toycathon 2021, Toy Business League 2022 have been conducted to encourage innovation in this sector. 
      • The growth of toy industry:
        • Export:
          • Despite the pandemic, the Indian toy industry has grown, boasting of export of $326 million (Rs 2,601.5 crore) of toys in FY21-22, which is an increase of over 61 percent over $202 million (Rs 1,612 crore) in FY18-19. 
        • Import:
          • The import of toys in FY21-22 has reduced by 70 percent to $110 million (Rs 877.8 crore), compared to imports worth $371 million (Rs 2,960 crore) in 2018-19.

    Reasons for choosing the manufacturing sector

    • India’s growth over the past two decades has largely been due to the service sector. 
      • This led to a huge pay-off in the short run, wherein the Information Technology and Business Process Management thrived expansively.
    • The tertiary sector has helped boost the economy but the secondary sector, i.e. manufacturing is severely lagging. 
    • This program was initiated to provide a much-needed boost to the manufacturing sector, which would also provide employment opportunities.

    Challenges 

    • Although the program has been successful, there are certain challenges.
    • Agriculture & Environment:
      • India is primarily an agro-based country and thereby has 60% cultivable land. 
      • Even if a ‘green strategy’ is adopted, the rapid increase in industrialisation can lead to depletion of natural resources.
      • Industrialisation can lead to adverse effects on the environment and can lead to disastrous effects.
    • Domestic markets:
      • Increase in large-scale foreign direct investment can lead to disruptions in the domestic market, as the farmers and small-scale entrepreneurs may not be able to compete with the international players.
      • The Government should also ensure that there are sufficient platforms for improving research and development in the country.
    • Infrastructural facilities: 
      • There exist serious lacunae in the infrastructural facilities in the country. Although several programs have been initiated, the implementation of these programs has not been up to the mark.

    Other measures to strengthen the Make in India initiative

    • The reform measures include 
      • Amendments to laws, 
      • Liberalization of guidelines and regulations, in order to reduce unnecessary compliance burden, 
      • Bring down cost and 
      • Enhance the ease of doing business in India. 
      • Burdensome compliances to rules and regulations have been reduced through simplification, rationalisation, decriminalisation, and digitisation, making it easier to do business in India. 
    • Labour reforms:
      • Additionally, Labour reforms have brought flexibility in hiring and retrenchment. 
    • Promotion of manufacturing:
      • Steps to promote manufacturing and investments also include reduction in corporate taxes, public procurement orders and Phased Manufacturing Programme.
      • Quality control orders have been introduced to ensure quality in local manufacturing. 
    • Production Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes:
      • As a part of the ‘Make In India’ program, the government introduced Production Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes across 14 key manufacturing sectors in 2020-21 as a big boost to the ‘Make in India’ initiative. This also included a $10-billion incentive scheme to build a semiconductor, display, design ecosystem in India
    • The One-District-One-Product (ODOP) initiative:
      • It is aimed at facilitating the promotion and production of indigenous products from each district of the country and providing a global platform to the artisans and manufacturers aiming to contribute to the socio-economic growth of various regions of the country
    • ‘Gatishakti’ programme:
      • The programme will ensure logistical efficiency in business operations through the creation of infrastructure that improves connectivity. 
      • This will enable faster movement of goods and people, enhancing access to markets, hubs, and opportunities, and reducing logistics cost. 
    • State initiatives:
      • In line with the Make in India, individual states too launched their own local initiatives, such as “Make in Odisha“, “Tamil Nadu Global Investors Meet“, “Vibrant Gujarat“, “Happening Haryana“, and “Magnetic Maharashtra“.

    Way Ahead

    • The Make in India initiative has been striving to ensure that the business ecosystem in the nation is conducive for investors doing business in India and contributing to growth and development of the Nation. 
    • This has been done through a range of reforms that has led to increased investment inflows as well as economic growth. 
    • With this initiative at the forefront, the businesses in India are aiming that the products that are ‘Made in India’ are also ‘Made for the World,’ adhering to global standards of quality. 

    Source: ET

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