Make in India: Policy Drives and Challenges

The mission of Make in India is in place in India since 2014. It is a macroeconomic industrialization drive with programs and projects within in India, by the people of India, and for India. It is also a program to show case the world that Indian manufactured goods are as good as made anywhere in the world, if not better. A large number of products and services are conceived under this mission. ‘Make in India’ is an invitation to foreign and Indian manufacturing firms to invest and produce in India, with or without foreign but modern technologies and capital investment flows, using domestic labour force. The program demands several major shifts in policies and strategies at public and private sector levels, and government administrative structures, such as emphasis on drastic shift to high level of productivity, pushing programs on job skill developments, promoting labour-intensive production systems, creating an atmosphere for boosting exports purely on a competitive basis with several reforms on ‘ease of doing business’, creating opportunities for infrastructural development with reforms in FDI regulations, and providing congenial financial and credit facilities with several fiscal and monetary policy reforms such as gradual withdrawal of subsidies, or reducing lending interest rates. This paper concentrates only on the economic aspects of Make in India mission. After explaining the economic logic and reasons for this mission, the paper in several sections points out to the major challenges to operationalize the mission. It ends with issues in implementing the mission and possible policy guidelines towards implementation.