In the 1990s, Manmohan
Singh painted the economic canvas of India, in a very different hue.
I was the president of
the student body while at Masters, and he was the finance minister. I had
invited him personally for my annual function, and he spoke to close to 90 mts
without a shred of paper in hand.
The finance minister par
excellence I believe has made the most insipid prime minister.
But from then to now,
India has travelled a long journey.
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While her performance in
services is commendable, the performance in the manufacturing is pathetic.
Sustainability I believe
shall come from industry and manufacturing. All other development shall be far
more fleeting than that comes from manufacturing.
Even the resilient Indian
entrepreneur is far more reluctant to put up a manufacturing unit, than a
services unit. The owner of a manufacturing unit is treated like a sitting duck
in the country. He is hounded by so many agencies and their clearances that he
buckles under the weight of regulatory approvals.
Speak to any entrepreneur
and he is repentant about having put up a manufacturing unit instead of a
service unit, as the hassles right from unions to government clearances and
officers’ unending greed for graft and unofficial gratification just bogs him
down. What is even more repugnant to the very rationale of brick and mortar
industry, is the ailing supply chain and rickety road system of the country. It
takes just ages for commercial transport reaching a destination. The
obstructions and check points faced by truckers in India is the highest in the
World. The entire system is an anathema for trade.
Another phenomenon that
is noteworthy is that the opening up and dismantling of the Raj benefited the
south of India more than the North, while the population grew more in the
North. One reason could be the far higher FDI that the India south of the
Vindhyas has received, than that North of it. It could well be due to the
diaspora being more from that region as well, and it is they who are ploughing
back money to regions where they hail from and which they understand better.
