Elated about how the current government is working, Sunil Bharti Mittal, speaking at the Business Today India @100 Economy summit, said that India is in a very exciting phase.
"I feel that somehow everything has aligned in a very good way for India. Building hard physical infrastructure would still take us 20-30 years to be where China is, while we are doing road development at breakneck speed we are doing I know new airports, a lot of new stuff is coming through. But that takes time (and) is really not an easy task to put infrastructure for a nation as big and diverse as India… There's a lot of work to be done there. But the digital infrastructure is here and now and I think that is where India's vision of being digital holds so much promise," said Mittal. India is a $3.1 trillion economy today and wants to get to a $5 trillion economy by 2027, of which $1 trillion is being projected for digital, which means the country the leadership and the government recognizes that a digital platform for India will transform this nation.
Mittal, who started manufacturing telephones (push button ones in 1982), has closely watched India's long journey in the manufacturing space. Sharing his views, he said, "In the early 90s, we saw most of the large telecom gear manufacturing coming here. Ericsson came here, Nokia came here, Alcatel came here. Nortel came here, Fujitsu came here. And they set up very fancy factories which are ahead of its time. Each one of them, in a matter of five years, left the country. Our loss was China's gain at that time. We had actually taken a lead or at least by far China at that time. Slowly and surely we saw all these manufacturing moving away."
The government of India is in course-correction mode and is investing lakhs of crores in various forms of manufacturing in the country. In 2014, when India hardly had any electronics manufacturing, today, India's electronics manufacturing is close to $80 billion. And the number of people employed in the electronics manufacturing sector is 2.5 million as per minister Ashwini Vaishnaw. And with geopolitical tensions and the world looking for a trusted source, things have also changed and are in some sense in favour of India. "Suddenly, the issue of China has become massive. I would say not just a talking point but deep stress around the globe and the cracks that have appeared on this global supply chain is giving India a very good opportunity. Now combine that with PLI what has been ushered by the government and you're seeing manufacturing companies lining up to pick up those subsidies to set up manufacturing plants here," added Mittal.
The rate of growth of electronics manufacturing in India is double-digit CAGR. And in the next 4-5 years, this will become a $250 million industry. The way things are going, the minister thinks India may exceed $300 billion and might exceed one crore employment in the coming 4-5 years.
Read More at https://www.businesstoday.in/india-at-100/story/indias-loss-was-chinas-gain-sunil-bharti-mittal-on-electronics-and-equipment-manufacturing-345773-2022-08-27