Make in India: re-chanting the mantra with a difference

Abstract

Make in India is an old mantra. It was very much there during India‟s colonial period and the post-independence decades till 1991, and now it has been pronounced from the ramparts of Red Fort. The paper attempts to trace the origin and idea of Make in India through time and identifies what needs to be done to turn the Make in India mantra into a reality. Free market is the engine of growth for the economy and government has to provide the necessary lubricant for it to work. This involves reforming industrial, labour, and land acquisition laws; liberalizing inflow of FDI and technology; simplifying and integrating state/center administrative compliances for business; government staying away from economic activities which do not qualify for market failure argument, and, instead concentrating on improving comparative advantage of the country by investing in merit goods such as basic research, primary education, and primary healthcare.