Modi's 'Make in India' initiative is a fallacy: Cong

Congress today termed Narendra Modi's 'Make in India' initiative as a "fallacy" with no correspondent development in the field of defence, tax regime and the price of essential commodities in its one-year regime.
"One of the biggest 'Make in India' failures is the multi-billion dollar Rafale Fighter Jet deal that the Prime Minister signed with French Government. The new deal now seems to be promoting 'make in France' rather than make in India," Congress spokesperson Meem Afzal told reporters here.
He alleged that the deal negotiated for over three years through a transparent bidding process by the UPA government envisaged sale of only 18 Rafale fighter aircrafts from France and production of the remaining 108 aircrafts by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) through the transfer of technology agreement.

"Modi government bypassed the established defense procurement procedure and defense acquisition council to unilaterally order 36 Rafale fighter aircrafts from France with no clarity on the transfer of technology or their production in India by HAL," Afzal said.
The spokesperson said that the Modi government had pitched Make in India initiative at every opportune moment, but has done nothing to address the challenges of building global competitiveness in manufacturing demands, restructuring of the inverted tax structure, levelling the high cost of inputs and resolving the crucial logistics issues.