There is nothing new in Modi's 'Make in India' campaign
The initiative has failed so far because of the same old ideas of tax breaks or concessions rather than anything new
 "There is nothing new in Modi's 'Make in India' campaign")
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’ campaign has been a hit – in the virtual world. Reports say the Facebook page of ‘Make in India’ adds a new member every three seconds and has become the most sought after government initiative ever on the digital media platform.
An official statement reads: "The initiative has already touched over 2.1 billion global impressions on social media and reached an overall fan base of over 3 million on its Facebook page."
The statement goes on to say: "The Make in India Facebook page adds a new member every 3 seconds, a feat that has not been achieved by any other department of the government and a very few in the private sector.”
The statement goes on to say: "The Make in India Facebook page adds a new member every 3 seconds, a feat that has not been achieved by any other department of the government and a very few in the private sector.”
On Twitter @makeinindia handle has 2.63 lakh followers already in 90 days. Its launch video has over 5.7 lakh views on YouTube.
While the cyber world has witnessed strong response, there is precious little happening on the ground.
After more than three months since its official announcement, the ‘Make in India’ initiative has failed to provide any concrete push to India’s manufacturing or exports.
Presentations made by various ministries to the Prime Minister and Finance Minister were not encouraging. It sounded like a pre-budget presentation that each ministry makes to the finance minister.
It was the same old recipe of asking for tax breaks or concessions to boost manufacturing. For increasing defence production rather than being thankful of government’s effort for indigenisation the ministry has asked for a tax holiday. Besides hiking FDI limit in defence sector there is a demand to give financial incentives to make India attractive for big defence companies.
Oil ministry proposed a development cess should be levied to help the oil sector. Import duty on steel is being proposed to be increased to help local steel industries. It was proposed that steel should be excluded from free trade agreements. To boost exports of precious metals, like gold, it was proposed that import duty on them could be reduced.
If this is what the government calls ‘Make in India’ incentives, they are nothing but repackaging of old ideas. There is no out of the box thinking or a genuine long term vision by any of the ministries in their proposal. Tax breaks and concessions are the oldest trick in town of incentivising a sector.
If ‘Make in India’ has to be a success industry has to have the visibility that their produce is sold in the market. With global economies not showing any signs of picking up the market will have to be created in India itself.
On the potential of ‘Make in India’ McKinsey partner Barnik Maitra along with Sunali Rohra and Shishir Gupta have said in an article that the central objective of Make in India is to follow a new model of urbanisation by creation of various industrial corridors. However, to achieve this task none of the bottlenecks has yet been removed. Structural reforms are needed to clear the path, which unfortunately none of the ministries seem to have understood.