Gauri Chhabra
On Independence Day this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi sounded a harbinger of investment when he gave the clarion call of ‘Make in India’. The slogan,with all the usual effervescence of all national slogans, opens doors for the business and elevates India on the world economy.The singular idea is to make India a manufacturing hub.
The focus of Make In India program is on creating jobs and skill enhancement in 25 sectors. These include:automobiles, aviation, chemicals, IT & BPM, pharmaceuticals, construction, defense manufacturing, electrical machinery, food processing, textiles and garments, ports, leather, media and entertainment, wellness, mining, tourism and hospitality, railways, automobile components, renewable energy, mining, bio-technology, space, thermal power, roads and highways and electronics systems.
The Make in India Effect
This welcome initiative if executed well will have a halo effect on the jobs and investments creating a virtuous cycle of investment, production, employment and rise in purchasing power.It is important for the purchasing power of the common man to increase, as this would further boost demand, and hence spur development, in addition to benefiting investors.
There would be a paradigm shift from services-driven growth model to labor-intensive manufacturing-driven growth. The policy objective ofworld-class domestic manufacturing would create jobs opportunities in the following sectors:
Export oriented manufacturing
The contribution of the Indian workforce to GDP is quite low- as low as 14% to GDP; this campaign will help boost India’s economy by enhancing GDP contribution from Manufacturing. Manufacturing is key not only for expanding the GDP but most vitally for job creation. The success will however come from effective implementation in dealing with various factors required for Indian manufacturing to become globally competitive.
Automotive sector
With the launch of Make in India campaign by the Indian government, automotive sector has got a major impetus. As the sector already enjoys 100% FDI, the Government is now working on an Automotive Mission Plan to emerge as top destination for design and manufacture of automobile and components. This will create more than 25 million automobile jobs. In case you have an Engineering degree in automobiles, you can carve a niche for yourself in research and development on hybrid and electric vehicles using indigenous technology and component supplies. Since the Government is creating SEZs in the remote states like Uttarakhand, Jammu & Kashmir, & Himachal Pradesh there would be jobs in these locations too.
Basic Transport
Make in India campaign will kick in robust hiring with the Union Government investing more in industrialization and devising policies to boost employment and thereby contribute towards the GDP.This campaign is expected to give a major boost to public policy making and planning that is in turn likely to boost demand in the sector especially commercial vehicles and build efficient public transport models.
Infrastructure building
Manufacturing requires a significant edifice of infrastructure support.The focus on manufacturing will drive the development of other key sectors like infrastructure and energy as they will serve as growth enablers. It is important to connect village clusters with international markets and not only domestic markets by building physical infrastructure so that all our goods and services are connected to all markets.To begin with, there would be jobs in the basic transport, power then graduating to building of industrial corridors and export oriented infrastructure that would in turn boost demand for jobs in architecture and town planning.These corridors would house Industrial agglomerations along with smart cities. The private sector would be playing a significant role in these developmental works.
Information Technology
“We want highways. We also want i-ways – information ways for a Digital India”,is a major highlight of the campaign.India has very complex regulatory procedures and high administrative burdens for firms, which not only impede growth, but create opportunities for corruption. As a result, in India a large part of subsidies on electricity, food and fuel that are supposed to protect the poor never reach them.There have been numerous initiatives to simplify and improve Government administration and boost transparency, notably through the use of Information Technology. This has necessitated jobs in the Information Technology sector that relate to cyber security, ethical hacking and Big Data.
Human Resource Management
Of late it has been felt that there is a lack of job readiness among fresh entrants in the labor market. Nearly 12 million people enter the labor market every year but less than 10% have the requisite skills. The campaign aims at creating a workforce that is skilled and talented. India wants to impart skills training to 500 million people by 2022 to provide efficient human resource. There is a growing need to up skill and cross skill the new entrants in the job market so that they can compete with their counterparts across the globe. Firms often cannot find employees with the right skills, calling for improvements in the quality of education and training.Those who are planning to get a management degree should go in for a specialization in Human Resources especially learning and development.
Besides Learning and Development there would be a plethora of jobs in labor law. Right now, only about 10 percent of the working population is covered by labor regulations, as firms have adjusted their size and contracts to avoid these regulations, choosing instead to stay in the informal sector.As a result, workers are not protected, firms are too small and overall productivity remains low. There is a need for Human Resource Professionals specializing in labor law who can help interpreting labor law in a simpler manner thus offering an alternative growth path for firms, new opportunities for the creation of quality jobs, and better prospects for workers.
Banking
Make in India aims to bring about easy finance to set up a new venture and boost entrepreneurship. Investment should recover, as the decline in political uncertainty has boosted business sentiment. The banking sector may create up to 20 lakh new jobs in the next 5-10 years, helped by issuance of new licenses and efforts being made by the RBI and the Government to expand financial services into rural areas.With only less than 30 per cent of the Indian population having access to bank accounts, top banking firms are looking to expand and venture into the untapped rural markets that have so much potential to boost growth and profitability.There will be growing demand for business correspondents, sales executives and other banking professionals to reach out to the rural population. Besides direct hiring, expansion in banking sector would also help in huge job creation in various support areas such as client servicing and selling of financial services.
The mood is upbeat and has had a positive confidence effect on the Indian economy. If the intent is translated efficiently into execution, we can expect the job market to grow aggressively over the next five years.We would be on the fast track to a spurt of job opportunities and an exponentially growing economy.
Follow our WhatsApp channel