Will Make in India just remain in dreams?

I am in China to visit China Fire 2019.  I have visited China several times but this time it is after a gap of nearly 8 years.  China has really transformed.  It was way ahead of India in terms of infrastructure and manufacturing in 2011 and it still maintains the lead.  Then they had neat and clean highways.  Now they have more highways.  They had metros in 2011.  Now they have denser metro network and dense network of bullet trains.  

5.5 years back Modiji gave new hope to Indians.  There are plans to build new Highways, Airports, Metros, High Speed Trains, Bullet trains.  Many are under execution also.  Metros in Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur are being built at rapid pace.  Delhi Metro is really iconic.  But on the other side development is being stalled by various agitations, problems in land acquisitions and poor execution by contractors.  

I visited Zengzhou for some work.  My experience of traveling by Bullet Train at 300km/hr from Beijing to Zengzhou was amazing.  30Km road to factory I visited was 8 lane and spotless.  Compared to that adding 2 extra lanes on 4 lane 100km highway from Pune to Satara is not complete even after 9 years.  Pune Nasik highway is also incomplete at few places.  Roads all over India are filled up with potholes.  Roads are still littered by garbage and noise pollution by mindless honking! I think China's success lies in Vision, planning and execution. ***Above: Airport like Zengzhou Railway Station and below Zengzhou Railway Station on the left with Skyline.

On business front, China has developed huge domestic market on their own.  In China Fire Exhibition almost 95% of the stalls belonged to Chinese companies displaying Chines products.  We participated in recently concluded Fire India at Pragati Maidan.  95% stalls were displaying imported products.  That speaks why India China trade deficit is USD50Bn.  When I spoke to Chinese business owners, they were not worried about trade war with USA because they have their own huge market and even market of rest of the world.  

India can follow the same strategy and leverage on huge domestic market.  Probably that was in Modiji's mind when he announced "Make in India" program.  But has it touched people's heart?  While Government is insisting on Made in India products in their tenders, people still crave for imported ones.  On the other hand very few manufacturers produce world class products.  It is important to bridge this gap.

For Make in India, local R&D is very important.  In China nearly 25% of the staff is deployed for R&D.  Indian businesses deploy less than 10%.  Again it's a chicken and egg situation.  We invest less in R&D, so we have few world class products and therefore we have less localisation.  Chinese Businessmen are ready to take risk.  Whereas I find many are risk averse. 

"Make in India" businesses have many challenges today.  Many local businesses like Construction, Automobile, Banking etc. are going through tough phase.  Naturally credit is hit.  Cash flow situation is worst in last 30 years.  Despite of MSME law, companies including Govt institutions don't pay on time.

Will Make in India just remain in dreams?  Certainly it can be realised, if every manufacturer produces quality products and every consumer buys them and Govt supports that with state of the art infrastructure.  I can see that realisation is coming.  

Yesterday, I was speaking to my friend Ajit Raghavan and he came up with idea of forming separate Chair for "Make in India" in Fire Security Association of India (FSAI).  Ajit is well known personality in World's Fire Safety Sphere and is past Secretary of FSAI.  Such initiatives by various Associations will also bring focus on Make In India.

To summarize following 3 important things are required to bring "Make in India" to reality.

1. Government (Politicians & Bureaucrats) to plan and speedy execution of infrastructure. e.g. China completed 36Km Hangzhou Bay Bridge in 4 years in 2007.
2. Manufacturing units should invest in R&D and ensure world class quality.
3. Traders and Consumers should encourage local manufacturing and support Government for Infrastructure building.