Why India needs innovative technologies more for the Make in India campaign?

   “All we have to do is break the shackles that chain the energies of our people, and India’s economy will record a quantum leap and move into a new, higher orbit of growth, competitiveness and productivity.”  These were the words of the Late industrialist, Dhirubhai Ambani, who was one of the leading lights of the Indian Corporate world, keen on making India a super power one day.

Ameliorating technology has been the sign of most of the developed nations, be it USA, China, Germany or Japan. Developed nations make the most out of technology. It has not only raised the gross domestic product (GDP) of the nations but also improved the employment opportunities for its people. All the developed nations, today, are setting up firms or outsourcing some of their jobs to different nations wherein the manpower is cheap and manufacturing costs are meagre which prove to be a boost to their economy.

One such revolutionary movement initiated by the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, was named, “MAKE IN INDIA”. The ‘Make in India’ campaign was an open invitation to all the developed countries to initiate investments in India which was not only a step for India’s development but it also promoted India’s work force and technology to make and manufacture goods for the developed nations. This novel thought would not only prove to be a catalyst to the growth of our country but it also had new prospects of plummeting the intense unemployment rates which was myriad. The different realms of hospitality, tourism, aviation, textiles, IT, automobiles were the prime targets.

Many expectations have been set from this campaign which includes the increasing employment opportunities to 114 million, the foreign direct investment (FDI) and the gross domestic product (GDP). India’s FDI is expected to rise from $23.7 billion to $40 billion, the GDP from 14% to 25% till 2022. These results are expected provided we have the necessary infrastructure and resources to achieve them.

As of now, one year down the line from the initiative of the campaign, Indian government has seen growth in the different sectors of electronics, defence, aviation, railways and automobiles. The investment increased in electronics with Foxconn playing a major role in setting up 10-12 more facilities in India and assuring the manufacture of IPhone at a cheaper rate, Mercedes Benz taking a further step in increasing the manufacture of luxury buses and its new model of CDI C200 by 60%. The railways have imported 20 coaches of innovative idea for fast inter-city travel and is planning to manufacture 275 coaches of the same which is bolstering the FDI by Rs2,500 crores. In the aviation sector, Airbus has invested in restructuring its organisation in India, so did Pratt and Whitney by increasing the economy to $4 billion.

It’s been a year now since India initiated the idea of a technological revolution, but there has been a standstill in the campaign because the expected the numbers aren’t meeting. To prosper, there are some basic requirements which are considered essential by the investing countries. They include the standards, accreditation and technology without which investment in our country would be erratic. To build confidence in the super powers India needs to show that it is capable of achieving the technological efficiencies which includes accuracy, reliability, response time and flexibility to the cost of production and also the assured quality.

In aerospace companies, there is a need to prove that they have the required standard and technology to meet the desired result of manufacturing which includes accuracy in the range of micrometres which is to the extent of 0.000001. Unless and until we have such highly efficient and precise machinery and necessary technology to produce such components and carry out further research, we won’t have half of what it takes to reach where the World’s Super powers are now.

It is quality which we trust in the products of the foreign countries which would lack if India becomes a paradigm like China in the manufacturing sector. People should have the trust in the quality of the goods that are manufactured by India. This would be possible only if we have the resources and the necessary technologies to produce such zero defect products with maximum efficiency and accuracy.

This can be achieved only if we build or invest in some technological necessities which include machines, alternative technologies, research, and qualitative and quantitative analysis of manufacturing process. Only then we will be able to contest with the super powers. Along with technology and machinery, some basic rules of Kaizen and Six Sigma techniques which include waste management and value stream mapping are necessary to achieve success.

India has plethora of talent and knowledge for making the best out of the resources to rule the world. Take examples of the CEO’s of elite companies like Google, Microsoft, Infosys, PepsiCo, who are all of Indian origin. This can be achieved only if our government invests in the different sectors of the industry and provides the necessary technology and more so that machines and technology become our strength instead of our shortcoming. A revolution would then be inevitable and we would be able to witness the results of our efforts in the near future. Ultimately, we would be out there, along with the super powers of the world as a developed nation that flew above its ‘developing’ status in merely half of the expected time. A nation with minimum dependence on other countries, maximum global value and highest level of research, we would be.

Then, the “Golden Bird” and a Super Power, we will be, indeed.