 Hello and welcome to the CNBC TV18 special. I am Shireen Ban and we are coming to you live from the World Economic Forum's India Economic Summit here in New Delhi. Joining us today is a power-packed panel to talk about the manufacturing agenda. It is a crucial engine to drive and fuel growth for India. Lots has been done but what more needs to be done to ensure that we actually achieve the potential. Remember, manufacturing has been identified as a priority area by the Modi government. The Make in India mission has been successful in that it has positioned India as a manufacturing hub but all of that now needs to translate into investments, growth, opportunities and jobs. What more can be done to truly make India a center of the global manufacturing supply chain. Those are some of the issues that we intend to discuss here today. Very brief introductions because my panel is here today. Don't really need any. Let me start with my right, the man who is the man behind Make in India, Amitabh Kant, the CEO of the Nithya Yoga. Appreciate you joining us on the show. Also with that, Sanjeev Sharma, the man who is responsible for ABB's operations in India. Sanjeev, appreciate you joining us. John Orik of ATKANI looking at the manufacturing sector and looking at India very, very closely. And a veteran of India's manufacturing industry, Baba Kalyani, the chairman of the Kalyani group. Appreciate you joining us here on the show. Mr. Kant, let me start by asking you and let me list out everything that has been done. Mr. Kalyani pointed out that the Make in India brand is perhaps one of the most successful brands that the Indian government has created. But to make that brand now, convert itself into opportunities, convert itself into investments, what more needs to be done? Shireen, firstly, you know, we've made ourselves very complicated and difficult place to do business. You've got to make yourself the easiest and the simplest place to do business in. We've opened up our economy in a very big way. We've, our FD has grown by about 53 percent. Globally, it's down by 16 percent. But I think we need to drive innovation in a much bigger way. We've seen a lot of innovation happening in the field of automobiles, auto components, etc. We need to push the limits in defense manufacturing in a very big way. It'll be, you know, you want to grow at 9 to 10 percent on a sustained basis over a long period of time. You need to create jobs. And it's very important that electronics, hardware manufacturing, defense manufacturing must become the key driver for making manufacturing grow at very, very rapid pace. It's important that, you know, you can't have growth without jobs. Jobs is a critical factor. Only manufacturing can give you jobs. And therefore, to my mind, opening up the envelope in these sectors is very critical. Orders must flow out. They must flow into domestic manufacturing areas. You're absolutely right. And job creation is going to be a significant challenge. In fact, if you look at the latest data that's coming from the government, the unemployment rate is at 5 percent, up from 4.9 percent in 2014. So that is going to be a critical aspect that we will need to contend with. But let me ask you specifically, sir. You know, making India is not just about manufacturing in India, because if you look at the defense procurement policy that the government has recently released, the idea really is to design, develop, and make in India. With that emphasis, do you believe that we really move up the value addition curve as far as manufacturing is concerned? No. Sheeran, actually, a lot of innovation is taking place. You know, it's a story not talked about. But over the last four years, there are 1,500 multinational corporations who have relocated their manufacturing, who have relocated their global innovation centers into Bangalore and Hyderabad. Actually, India is innovating for the rest of the world. In many ways, Microsoft's Bing, you know, you look at John Decree's 60 HP tractor, you look at several innovations done for Honeywell, for several companies across the world, has actually been innovated in India. Look at a company like Renold in its 118 years history, has never innovated a design manufactured car outside Europe. It comes and does that in Machinnai. Renold Quid, which is exporting to the rest of the world. So a lot of innovation is happening here. We need to push the limits from not merely auto components and automobile, but into a vast range of new areas of manufacturing now. Okay. Sanjeev, let me put that question to you then. When we talk about these new areas and pushing the boundaries and pushing the envelope now, and ABB has a 100-year history in India, so across your various businesses, you have been not just manufacturing in India, but you've also been designing and developing in India through your R&D centers. Not more needs to be done to make this manufacturing story real. I mean, I've heard about this figure of manufacturing output being 25% of GDP. For many, many years, the target is getting there by 2025. How realistic is that today? I think in today's connected world and the technology absorption which is taking place and I think India is one country wherein the technology absorption is at a very, very good pace. So I would say the next revolution that we're going to see in the industry side, industry four, I think it has all the imprints that it can happen in India because what it actually looks for is it looks for the interconnected processes. You have high-end software development which is connecting the manufacturing processes. I think many of the elements exist within the country and there is a cutting-edge supply of R&D towards the global cooperation which is done in places like Bangalore, etc. If you put all these things together, I think we already have a fairly robust ecosystem combined with the demographic dividend that stays with us. Let me ask you this and then I'll put this question to Mr. Kalyani and John as well. I was having a conversation with the GE vice chairman John Rice and GE has been a long-term India investor as well. But companies still believe that the cost of doing business is intimidating or continues to be intimidating in India. Do you agree with that? Have you seen any significant difference? I like to look at the positive side of the story wherein if I see that now we are becoming a demand-driven supply chain. If you really look into our daily lives, if you want to order a device or some good that you want to consume in your house, you can order it online and then the whole supply chain behind it which is able to deliver it despite all the constraints we talk about the infrastructure and others. The ecosystem is able to absorb that kind of innovation and technology and the service quality is improving by the day. So I believe, yes, we do have the base to leverage on here. Okay, we have the base to leverage on. Mr. Kalyani, let me ask you this. Just picking up from where I left the conversation with Sanjeev and John Rice who is a co-chair here at the World Economic Forum's India Economic Summit also said that if India really wants to position itself as an exporting hub, if it wants to do more of making India for the world, then it needs to start to provide better facilities to exporters as well. Maybe some export-linked incentives. What to your mind should be the prescription if India wants to position itself as the next big export hub? You know, my view on Indian manufacturing and specifically for exports, as a company, 70% of our revenue is exports. So, you know, we've been doing it for many, many years. Let me just state a few of the important facts as they stand today. If you look at manufacturing of engineered products, I think there is hardly a place that is more competitive in the world than India. You have the skill sets which Mr. Amitabh Khan just mentioned in terms of, you know, people doing R&D and research and designing for all large companies. I mean, there's a whole pool of people and ecosystem that's all present there. You have raw material costs which are almost the same as the rest of the world. We have some amount of disadvantage in terms of our infrastructure and the infrastructure that you use in manufacturing. But that, I think, with whatever the government is trying to do, hopefully, we see light at the end of the tunnel going forward. So, I don't think, I personally don't think you need incentives for exports. I think we are a competitive economy as far as exports are concerned. The problem in exports is that you have a fairly volatile global marketplace. You have a lot of capacities in place. You have labor unions in other countries which exert pressures within the system. You have social problems that come out of all this. So, those are external issues. I think, so therefore, I honestly don't think this is a challenge for us to export. I think the real challenge for us is how do we substitute import in India with Indian products, which is what I just talked about, you know, defence. I mean, there's a huge amount of imports that are taking place. And that's only going to keep growing. I mean, it's going to keep growing exponentially unless we do something about it. On defence, let me ask you this. And we have seen significant changes as far as the FDI policy is concerned. There is virtually no cap now for FDI and defence because you can go all the way up to 100 percent. The conditionalities of the caveats have also, in that sense, been altered. But do you really see a big ticket inflow of FDI into the defence space? Because let's be clear. It also requires assured orders. And here it's the government that is the procurer. I mean, okay, I don't want to contradict what you're saying. But, you know, it's not necessary that only the foreigners have to come here and make defence products. No, I'm not suggesting that. I'm just saying that the government has liberalised the sector significantly. Okay. FDI in the automotive sector and automotive component sector was liberalised 20 years ago. You know, there's 100 percent FDI in the automotive sector and the automotive component sector. Who are the winners in this game? Are they foreign companies who are the winners? Or are they Indian companies who are the winners? You know, the answer is clear. Yeah, but a lot of those companies did start off as joint ventures, etc. Not necessarily. You know, so FDI is a good thing because you need investments. You need technology. So, you know, we all welcome this and we ourselves have joint ventures with half a dozen companies. But at the end of the day, we have to create the ecosystem to manufacture products within the country. So how real is this? Are we talking five years down the line? Are we talking about 10 years down the line? Because, you know, everyone's talking about making India and defence as being the next big opportunity. But give me a reality check of when you truly believe we are going to be able to see the fruits of that. I think between six to 12 months. Six to 12 months. Yes. Making India and defence will be a reality in the next six to 12 months. Okay, I'll get Mr. Kanth to comment on that in just a second. But John, let me ask you this because, you know, there's clearly optimism here amongst our panellists about the strength of the Indian manufacturing story, of the strength of domestic story, and that is giving investors like them confidence. But as you look at India today, and yes, we've done all of this stuff. Ease of doing business, competitiveness, ranking has improved. What continue to be the bug bears that you would like addressed? You would like a reality check? Yes. Well, first, a prefix. I've been coming for many years to India and the promise of India has always been there and I must really say I've never been more optimistic about India than now. It's really the case. Both talking to, not only talking to government officials, but particularly talking to the business world. The trust is really risen in a remarkable way. And so that's fantastic. That's something to build on. So I remain a big time optimist on India. So now let's bring down to reality a bit. The promise of make India was not only 25% of GDP target, but particularly 100 million jobs. And particularly from a government point of view, that's your prime responsibility after all. And the hope was, I suppose, to do what China has been doing so successfully. China lifted 400 million people out of poverty based on a model of low labor costs and of export-based manufacturing. That was their model. They're changing that model right now and that's the reason that the growth rate has gone down so much. I'm quite certain that they will make a lot of progress on that way. But I do believe that India cannot imitate that model. It is, I think, naive to do that because the world has changed in the meantime. At least two things I would like to mention. One is the world is not growing that much anymore. Look around you. It's mediocre growth at best and sometimes very, very low. And so to build your hopes only on exports is, I think, naive. This may be the word. Instead of make for the world, I would focus on make for India. First place. This is a country of huge potential and the India market is bigger than most people seem to realize, I think. So that's number one. And number two is technology has changed. When make India was designed, which I think was five, six years ago, the first studies, since now the technological developments have been huge. Robotics, artificial intelligence, IOT. You name it, I can give you a long list. And all of them have an enormous impact, certainly on the manufacturing world. You cannot base manufacturing, successful manufacturing for the long term, only on low labor cost. You have to become technologically advanced and implement that. So those are challenges certainly for this country. Yes. So let me address one of those challenges with you, Mr. Kanth. And we've had this conversation in the past. You know, as John rightfully said that part of making India is creating jobs in India. At this point in time, we're not really seeing that happen. At this point in time, we're also faced with a situation where jobs are getting added. For instance, in the auto sector, which is now seeing a demand revival, in the last year, 13,000 jobs were added, but 70% of those 13,000 jobs were contract labor. It was not permanent workforce. So given that challenge, what is the prescription then on the kinds of sectors that the government will need to put its might and its money perhaps behind? What are the kind of sectors that you will need to push to be able to achieve this objective? So let me first say that I don't agree with ORIG at all. Nobody makes for only the domestic market. And India must start thinking big in size and scale. Did Japan grow by manufacturing for its domestic market? Did Korea do that? Did China do that? You use the domestic manufacturing base as a springboard for exports. India's share of the global export market is very minimal. It's just 1.6%. Every crisis is an opportunity. Indian entrepreneurs, Indian manufacturers must think large in size and scale. They must penetrate global markets. India can't grow at 9% to 10% without exports. No country in the world has grown without export. You must look at domestic markets, but you get 10x the value in the export market. In the long term, Indians must be absolutely clear in the market that don't go by advice of consultants. Indians must go and penetrate global markets. That ambition and hunger for penetrating global markets without that India just can't do. I'm liking this repartee. So let me get John to respond to that. John, we don't need consultants like you. This is fantastic. This is beginning to look like the presidential elections in the United States. Who are you? Clinton or Trump? Although I would suggest with your agreement we will not sink to that level. You can be the Donald Trump. Does he have presidential temperament or not? It's absolutely fantastic. I kindly take that challenge. My point was you cannot only base make India on an export-led low-labor cost environment. You cannot only do that, because that is what China did successfully and you need to be smarter about that. So you also need to look at the domestic market, which is incredibly attractive. Why is FDI increasing so much in India? Because a lot of foreign companies see the potential of the Indian market, which is tremendous. So absolutely Indian companies need to be champions worldwide. I would always advise them to do that, but I would also advise them not to forget this market. I don't always see that. Let me put it that way. The second thing is much more important is that the key thing is to become really technologically advanced, to use the technological advancement that there is in order to become successful. And if I may add that, that is not an easy task. It's not a matter of having a beautiful plant, where within the four walls of the plant everything is optimal. That is only one very small part of an overall system. Manufacturing is a system. It's from planning, designing, buying, delivery, and that whole system needs to work well. And in that sense, there are still a lot of challenges also in this country to be made, as we all know. Just try to go from A to B and then you get your answer. Now, I am a firm believer that major progress is made. GST was a miracle, I think, honestly. It hasn't paid out yet. Okay. But the first step, it still is a miracle. It is. But all the infrastructure and infrastructure in the broader sense, there's still tremendous progress to be made. You will only become truly excellent, both as an exporter and for the Indian market, if that whole system becomes truly excellent. That is the challenge. Kaliani, you're nodding. So before I toss it back to Mr. Kanthi, you want to add to what John is saying and then I'll get Mr. Kanthi to respond. Well, let me give another perspective. A country in the manufacturing space is known by brands that it's selling to the rest of the world. Germany is known by its Audis and Mercedes and BMWs and Japan is known by something else. We all took China initially 20 years ago for granted and pooped them because they were selling only toys. But today, every smartphone is made out of China. Now, what is the brand that India has that, we have three brands, as I see it. Our biggest brand is making India. You go anywhere in the world, people know about making India and what it means. Our second biggest brand is probably yoga. And our third biggest brand is spices. That's where it stops. And I think what Amitabh is saying and what I would like to say is Indian companies need to create products that are recognized in the world. And therefore, how do you become a nation known for manufacturing if you don't make products that are well known in the world? So I think that's important. And you believe that we don't have any brands or world-class standards at this point in time? You tell me one. Tatas? Mahindra's? Good brands, yes. Bajaj, Kalyani. Okay. Mr. Kanthi, you want to respond to that and then I'm going to throw it open to the audience for questions. No, Mike. You know, we've opened up India's economy. We've allowed FDI to come in across sectors. The objective was to allow technology and competition to come in innovation to happen. My point was simply that nobody comes in looking only at the domestic market. You know, I mean, look at example of Hyundai when it came in. It came in looking for the domestic market. But it is today exporting 50% of its production to 123 countries using India as its manufacturing base. Look at Suzuki, it started exporting to its own country, Japan back. So everybody starts looking at the domestic market, but it uses that as a base for exports across the world. And Indians are entrepreneurial in nature. India's entrepreneurship is top class. I mean, it's unbelievable. And look at the kind of startups these guys are doing. And you just allow them the freedom to fly and think big and large. You know, we need to do something about our labor laws. I mean, at least the states need to do this because unless you do things to size and scale, you want to penetrate markets, you need to do it on large size and scale. And therefore, factor market productivity is the key. You need to make India a firm or efficient economy. At the peak of its growth, Japan was going with efficiency, was counting for 31% of its growth. Korea's factor market productivity was counting for 42% of its growth. In China, it was counting for 79%. We need to make India a far more efficient economy by bringing in factor market reforms now. We've done major reforms. We've brought in now structural reforms through bankruptcy laws, national company law tribunal, GST. All these are very radical reforms which this government has brought in. We were talking about them for last 10 years. This government has done it. Now we need to push the limits in factor market reforms and that's land and labor. When do we see that happen? I think the states will have to take the lead. The states must become the key agents of change now. You need 12 champion states to make India grow at 9% to 10% on a consistent basis. The hunger and ambition for 12% growth in states, 12 states growing at that level and it's doable in India, I can assure you. The leadership is dramatically changing in India today. There's huge competition among states. I'm seeing this when the competition and ease of doing business, the kind of competition that is taking place. Every chief minister is calling a meeting every week to make itself easy and simple and therefore my belief is that the political leadership is driving growth today. There's huge determination. We just need to drive it, accelerate it even more. Okay, that's a good point. Sanjeev, you want to add to that very quickly before I get the comments from the audience. I fully agree with Mr. Kant's point of view. I think even as a multinational company which is operating and manufacturing in this country for the last 60 years, now my mandate running this company here in India is twofold from the group headquarters. Number one, ABB for India and ABB for the world. It's not one or the other, it's a combination of the two because the kind of leverage which is available out of this country. The second point which Mr. Kant mentioned about the states, I live out of Bangalore and in last one month I at least had three chief ministers of different states who visited Bangalore with their complete administration and invited us to have a dialogue with them and also really made a very, very good case in terms of why we should set up our manufacturing and services operation in this state. So competitive federalism is working to the advantage of industry at this point in time. At least it's visible to us. At least it's visible. So let me throw this open for questions now. Mr. Goenka, I'm going to get a microphone across to you. Sir, if you could just stand up so that it's easier for them to spot you. Pawan Goenka there of M&M. Yes, sir. Thank you. Just to add to the last point that I fully agree that the states have become very competitive and hungry for business and they don't only invite us when they come to our town, they come to our offices to meet us. So that's a very big difference. There are many points that I would, I could talk about, but there's one point that I would like to press on further on what was discussed in export. I agree with Baba that we don't need incentives for export, but there are two points that I think we still need. One is bilateral agreements that many countries have which puts us at a disadvantage when we're exporting because import due to that we have to pay is higher than many other countries that have bilaterals and especially for auto OEMs that becomes a major disadvantage. And second one, you talked about brand, which is very important and brand of a product sort of follows brand of the country. And therefore for India to establish a brand, not so much for B2B because B2B brand requirements are very different than B2C brand requirements. So while a manufactured car from Suzuki, maybe seen as a Suzuki car and not as the Indian car, a car manufactured by Tata or Mahindra is seen as an Indian car. So how do we do more of brand development of Indian manufactured goods for consumer? Even at your job, sir? No, it is a combined effort that government of India and the industry has to put in. Just like an incredible India campaign that was done, I think Amitabh started that many years ago, which worked very well. Similarly, we have to do a campaign for manufactured goods from India to develop India brand. Okay. So two points there and let me address both. John, I want to start by asking you about the second point. How much of it is a collaboration between the country as well as the company so to speak to try and take forward this idea of making India and make in India brands? It absolutely takes to Tango. It's a country slash state effort, a government effort wherever the government sits. And it's a company effort, both to do that. You mentioned several German brands like Audi and BMW and what have you. What's so wonderful and why those brands are so strong and why they get such a big premium is because it's reinforced by the country brand. The country brand for quality, whether justified or not, but that brand, which everyone believes and trusts, is linked with the company brand. And that has been built over decades, by the way. Brands is built on trust and trust is built in very small steps over many, many years. It takes a long time. The wonderful thing is once it's there, it's very solid as long as you don't mess around with it. Exactly. But that is what's required. And I actually, I like your challenge. Show me the big brands around the world. If you go to any city in Detroit to ask people given Indian brand, I think you will get no answer. Yes. Whether it's right or wrong, but you get no answer. It behooves you to think about that, I think. Absolutely. But it's also a chicken and egg. Indian brand is going to take the make in India brand forward. Did Germany take Audi and BMW forward or did BMW and Audi through consistent leadership? It was a bit of both. It was a bit of both. Sure. It requires a dialogue. Yes. Okay. Let me move to the second point and I'll come to more questions in just a second. Mr. Kalyani, on the second issue of inking bilateral trades and we're now seeing an increasing trend of protectionism. We're also seeing partnerships like the TPP. We don't know what is going to come off it eventually now because the US itself seems to be developing cold feet. Multilateral arrangements seem to be less relevant today. It is going to be more about bilateral agreements. In that context, how critical is it going to be for the government to step the efforts and the pressure up to do something? I think it's absolutely important. I think Pawan raised a very, very important issue. We are beginning to see headwinds that were not there before in terms of goods flowing out of India to many destinations. I think this is largely because you had a platform with multilateral agreements with the World Trade Organization and all those kinds of things. And that's kind of broken down and has become now bilateral arrangements. And bilateral arrangements, everybody does it for their own advantage. Nobody's going to do it for your advantage. But I must say this that I think our government is also seized of this issue. It's not that it's off the radar. It's seized of the issue. Maybe we've been busy doing a lot of other things which were absolutely necessary because you had to create confidence in the Indian economy. You had to create confidence in the Indian policy that's been put forward. And I think I'm sure this issue will get addressed. But I think we as industry and, of course, from the government side, we need to together really push this agenda. A quick comment from you, Mr. Kanth, before I get in more questions. And one can blame the decline in exports which we've seen consistently now for the last 18, 19 months on a weak global environment. But outside of that, isn't it time really for India to also introspect and see what more needs to be done in terms of bilateral agreements, in terms of new markets to enter and so on and so forth? No, I'm a great believer in bilateral agreements. I think we should be far more aggressive. Commerce ministry is working on that. It's important that we work with Europe to enable our compact cars and our textiles to penetrate European markets. We need to push the limits in RCEP, et cetera. But I think a lot of work is being done by commerce ministry and they are pursuing it in the right direction. So I'm pretty sure that we need to become a far more aggressive player in the external environment. Okay. More questions? Yes, sir. If you can raise your hand and just stand up, please. I'll get gentlemen right behind. I'll come back to you, sir, in just a second. My name is Arsh Suresh. I work for a Japanese company in the executive search business, but we serve manufacturing groups both Indian and Japanese predominantly. My question is for Mr. Kalyani. You talked about competitiveness. India is as competitive as any other country in manufacturing because you touched upon labor cost and skills and cost of material and so on. My question to you, Mr. Kalyani and others as well, is how competitive are we on use of advanced technologies in manufacturing? Because if you compare with China and India, we understand robotics, automation, and now 3D printing is getting far more deeper into the integration of manufacturing. Is 3D printing particularly going to be an important part? So as we talk about, as the gentleman is saying, as we talk about companies sort of pivoting towards becoming digital industrial companies, where does India stand? How competitive are we? First of all, the basic answer is we are as competitive as anybody else in using technology I think Indians, Indian engineers, Indian entrepreneurs, Indian managers are as good as anywhere else in the world. So we're pretty good at using technology. The problem in using technology on a large scale is it is connected with demand. And unless you drive demand in that direction, you can't use technology. I mean, you talked about 3D printing. There are thousands of Chinese companies who are 3D printing Indian gods and sending it here. We have more than a thousand gods. So yes. So you're beginning to see this demand come because this is disruptive processes. You very soon see a thousand Indian companies doing the same thing. It's not going to take a long time. So it's going to happen. Yes, more questions. Yes, sir. If you can stand up please and we'll get the microphone across to you. And then since most of the questions are coming in from this side of the room, if there's questions from behind me, I'll come back to you. Yes, Kumar. You talked about yoga and of course, the other things that you talked about India. Probably one of the things that we want to think about is Ayurveda and herbal plants, medicines. So India is known for Ayurveda. And one of the aspirations of Amitabh and the leadership of India today has this about taking Ayurveda to the world. India doesn't have enough land to cultivate organic herbal plants. Other parts of the world has. Israel could take irrigation and make oranges and apples and irrigation as their core brand of Israel. Why can't India look at Ayurveda in a big way to the rest of the world? You have insights on this. You did incredible India. Can you take Ayurveda to the world? My experience of Ayurveda comes from Kerala, where I did God's own country. And I think there's huge potential in that. Wellness has a huge potential. People like Aurika are so stressed out that you need Ayurveda as a stress buster for the rest of the world. This is your Donald Trump moment. Is it? Okay. The lady there at the back. Can we get a question in from you please? So I would like to pose. I like that the panel is very optimistic about manufacturing and exports in India, but I'm in the garment manufacturing field. And honestly, our future to me looks very bleak. I think that China grew because they built cities around garment manufacturing. And I think like countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka and even Vietnam have overtaken India in the garment manufacturing field. And I'd like your opinion on this because I think that we employ together garment manufacturers. I think the most number of people in this country. And I don't really see without the drawback that we get from the government our existence. So. Okay. And that is a very, very valid point that you make. Thank you very much. So, you know, the government is quite, was quite seized with the matter. And we've just announced a very major textile package for the entire industry. We don't have to imitate China and everything. But in China, wages are rising at the level of about 12 to 13 percent per annum. And China is going to become extremely competitive as far as textiles and garments are concerned. It's important that India ceases this opportunity. And therefore we looked at the entire textile industry. The government has announced because it's a very labor intensive industry and you can create vast number of jobs. But is this 6000 crore rupees package that was announced enough? You know, I think it's the right step forward. To my mind, it's quite adequate at the moment. So it's a push in the right direction, at least. But if there's more to do, the government will be very happy to examine this. We are very keen to drive textiles and garments in a very big way. One of the constraints, of course, as far as garments are concerned is the not having a bilateral trade treaty with Europe. And that is putting Bangladesh to an advantage of about 9 percent. So you need to push that. But otherwise, we are very open. We've pushed a very big package for textile industry. We are willing to do much more. If there's anything, just put it in writing and give it to me. A very quick response. And then I'll get more questions. Also, I would like to touch on it's not just the package or the money we're receiving, right? But it's technology in terms of we shut down Tirupur, right? We shut down all those mills. We're shutting down mills every day because of pollution. But then there's no answer. There are so many people that are making fabric in a right way using the right STP plants, making sure there's zero discharge, but they're still being shut down. But what's the answer to coupling technology as we're talking about in all different kinds of manufacturing? In garments, technology is very expensive. I'll be very happy to sit down and interact with you. Okay. Thank you very much. More questions? Yes. Go ahead. If you can get a microphone, you have one already. Okay, Mr. Bajaj, go ahead and I'll come to you in just a second. Million waiting for jobs in the next 10 years. Amitabh, your Made in India program is directly correlated with absorbing these labor market people. Have you done any calculations as to how many of them will be absorbed? Because I believe, I'm very worried, that if these youth which come into the labor market are not absorbed, we are going to have serious anti-social problems. Yeah. I'm very, very serious. It's a valid point, sir. Thank you very much, Mr. Khan. So you know, that's a very important point that has been made. And that's why there's a lot of concern in government as well. And that's why we've done two very major things. One is what are the sectors which creates job? I mean, we push for the textile package, of course, but we've done a very unusual thing as far as the construction industry is concerned to revive it and to say that 75% of the award money where arbitration award has been given will be paid back. So these are very unusual things which a government has done to push for job creation in sectors. We've opened up FDI in food so that there can be backward linkage with we've allowed business to consumers retail so that we can create many more jobs in food processing. So a lot of work has been done. The government is equally, equally, concerned about job creation. So we are pushing the limits as far as textiles, food processing, construction, everything is concerned. You know, while you're talking about all of this, and I just wanted, I don't want to labor on that, but I want to take this point forward because even when we were growing at 7.6% or even if an average of 7%, we're not creating those jobs. Yeah, Sherin, I think we need to look at the present labor statistics as well. You know, I think if you look at go by EPFO and ESIC statistics, you get a very, very different picture. So you're saying the picture looks better? We are much, much dramatically better. Because EPFO and ESIC statistics are actually those of who are getting registered under them. And therefore we are trying to, we are still at the beginning stage of trying to reanalyze those data and that statistics. Okay. Yes, Mr. Shukla, go ahead. He addressed that question already. So that's a state issue. If I can get the microphone across here, please. Thank you. Mr. Kant talked about areas of excellence like Bangalore, Chennai and Pune. But for India to progress, we can't have only islands of progress and our challenges, you know, how to make Patna the next Pune or Bhubaneshwar, you know, the next Bangalore. And I think competitive federalism, we talk about that it will lift, but I think, you know, there has to be a little bit more, you know, beyond that. And maybe Mr. Kalyani can, you know, basically talk about that a little bit as to how do we broad-pace excellence throughout the country. Mr. Kalyani, you want to take up that? You know, the key to getting centers of excellence spread across the country is to connect the country with high-speed networks, both transport as well as communication. If you are able to move from one place to, you know, this whole road network program that Mr. Gadkuri is spearheading, or the ports program that, you know, I'll just give you a simple example or let's say analog. You know, what we are seeing today is a little trickle of activity. You know, it's a little bit like if you're in Pune and if you're there in the early 60s, we had this huge breakage of the Panche Dam and half of Pune was flooded, you know. But that breakage really started with some few drops coming out of the dam and then a little crack got formed and a small water started coming out and then, you know, in a few days, everything burst. Now, I think economy, labor markets, industrialization, manufacturing is pretty much like this. All these policies are creating this little trickle and this little trickle is going to become a little stream and very soon it's going to burst and, you know, create a huge opportunity. Unfortunately, we don't really have the luxury of time. John, yes. Can I add to that? In the spirit of playmanship, let me give you, if I were in government actually, I would have a daily subscription to a yoga treatment center because I would really be very stressed. The last time I looked, this is a democracy and you should be extraordinarily proud of that. And democracy depends on fueling jobs and that was absolutely rightly the promise behind Make India, 100 million. Between 2010 and 2014, four million manufacturing jobs were created, four million. If you extrapolate that at that rate, it is maybe eight to 10 million by 2025, not nowhere near what is needed. So that's the biggest challenge. Now, is it possible? No, no, no. Is it possible? I could not agree more. It's absolutely possible, but it's going to be a huge challenge. And for me, that is the biggest single one that I would focus on. The first thing I would begin with indeed is to connect the country in every possible way because that's an absolute condition to become excellent and to really create a massive job machine. And the second one is really become excellent at all the different factors of technology. Some are well in place, but many other technologies like like IoT, like artificial intelligence, most people don't even begin to understand what it will lead to. We'll have really a major impact. So focus on that and then it will happen. But like I said, I would not want to be in government right now. No, you wouldn't want to be in government and it's not an easy place to be. Do you have a daily yoga subscription, sir? No. You know, I mean, the yoga hasn't done him much good because he's he's he's getting his statistics all wrong. You know, because make in India was he's giving his coding statistics from 2010 to 2014, whereas make in India was launched at towards the end of 2014. So you we should really look at statistics from the beginning of 2050. No, the problem is the real one. Absolutely. You know, you can talk about 2014 versus 2012 and so on and so forth. But the problem is real. And the fact is 100 million and 12 million, there is a significant difference. No, no, I entirely agree with that. Our key strategy has to be about job creation. You can't do job creation without manufacturing. You can't do it on the back of services sector growth, which India has been doing for years. There are huge perils of premature deindustrialization. And therefore you need to push for manufacturing. A large country with a billion population can't grow without manufacturing. You need to do this. And I think one of the one of the points which Baba talked about is important. And I look at really the end of 2018 is critical because then you by that time you will have the dedicated freight corridor, which would have connected Delhi to Mumbai. You would have had Chennai to Amritsar to a link and goods which are taking 14 days to reach the ports in the western coast of India will reach within 14 hours. So that's a dramatic shift. And you know, actually many people don't know, but on the back of the dedicated freight corridor between Delhi and Mumbai, five cities are presently being constructed. So they are at one stage. So you will have a lot of new urbanization taking place on the back of that. Okay. We have the last. Yes. Yes. Go ahead. You know, to John's issue. Please understand that every direct manufacturing job that gets created creates six indirect jobs. So, you know, you create 10 million jobs in manufacturing. You're really creating 60 million. So, you know, that's that's the way Indian system works. Okay. Good point. Sorry. I'm just coming to, yes, you've been waiting for a long time. If you can get the mic, go ahead. I've been itching to make this point. Our top three brands are actually software, which we are known for globally. Second, entrepreneurship, the US VCA Association statistics is that we are the largest entrepreneur segment. Yes. Indians. And third is that we speak the language of technology, which is English. Now with artificial intelligence being the central piece of, you know, future, these are the most important factors that would combine to make any kind of growth that you can imagine for the future. Okay. Thank you very much for that comment, Mr. Forbes. I'll get the mic across to you and then get in, wrap up comments. I'll come to you, sir, in just one second. I wanted to actually come back to what Amitabh started with, which was the focus on innovation. And if you, because there's so much potential for Indian companies to do more with innovation and to invest more in innovation and in R&D. You know, if you look at our proportion of turnover that we invest as Indian companies in R&D, it tends to be a much smaller share of turnover than international companies in the same industry segments. The most extreme form of that is in the software industry, where our top 10 software firms invest 1% of turnover in R&D. China's top 10 software firms invest 11% in R&D. Whose fault is that? Certainly not his. It's definitely not his. I agree entirely. It's part of what we have to do and it's within our control as Indian firms to actually use the opportunities of our low cost engineering base to invest a lot more in R&D and to actually build then the technical capabilities that we can then build brands on. Maybe the brand needs to come after the technical capability and not before. So we need to think much more disruptively for India Inc. across sectors. Yes, sir, you've been waiting for a while. I'm going to get the microphone across to you. Go ahead. My name is D.V. Kapoor. I agree with Mr. Amitabh Khan that we must give a very high target for export. After that would be the test of our manufacturing. But why it has not been happening? The answer lies probably in what Baba said and which he has demonstrated in his company is creation of ecosystem for manufacturing. And I think what he meant by ecosystem is a manufacturing culture with important components of quality, productivity, in-house design development. And that we have never been focusing. Perhaps even still not been focusing. Even government is not focusing. In fact, I would go to the extent of saying that even your fraternity, I've rarely heard in a TV interview of like viewers are economic dailies. In article focusing, productivity, project management, design development, we talk of investments, targets, job. Those are important. I'm not saying those are not important. But this ecosystem and good examples are Bharat Forjan, Suzuki. We take your point, sir. And unfortunately running out of time, I have people in my year telling me that we're out of time. So 10 seconds please. A small example which will convey my point. Our largest commercial entity in the country is Railways. We have been manufacturing coaches based on an excellent collaboration done 50 years ago. And Railways have also been recruiting best of talented engineers, electrical and mechanical every year. But even recently everybody knows when we wanted a coach capable of running at 160 kilometer only, which is not a high speed internationally. We had to import because the ecosystem government has never emphasized on this. And unfortunately even today that is not happening. You're making a very valid point, sir. Thank you very much for raising those very critical issues. Just to sort of point out because you talked about the role of the media. And I have to say that at least as far as CNBCTV8 in its concern for 15 years, we've been putting the spotlight on entrepreneurship. Every startup that is a startup today has been on my show, sir. So we've done a little bit to create that. No, no, no, no, not broad but I'll have that conversation with you offline. Very quickly, I'm going to now start with wrap up comments from each of our panelists. We've talked about need to create an ecosystem. We've talked about the need to create world class brands. We've talked about the need to export more out of India. We've talked about the need for government and the corporate sector to partner and collaborate. The need for urgent reforms, whether it's land or labor, which of course is not a matter that the CENTEC can do much about, it's a state issue. On the table from each one of you, Sanjeev starting with you, the three things in the short term, medium term and long term that you would like each of these stakeholders to focus on. Well, as far as the Indian ecosystem is concerned, I think for a running business like ours, we're already using it and leveraging it, right? So the important thing is that first part would be that India should start consuming more of high technology in the efficiency and the productivity area. But when you allow that, then a lot of global technology comes in and that global technology gets indigenized and then gets spread into the supply chain, into the sub-suppliers. That's the quickest way to connect with the global world and also upgrade the skills as well as the sophistication of the supply chain. The second part is that if you're talking about mass scale manufacturing jobs, I think there are about 30 economies in the world, the developed economies, the growth rate of their labor force is declining. And in India, we will have that dividend going forward for next 15 to 20 years. I think we should also have a focus program from the policy point of view to cash those jobs because those will go to the location wherein you have the labor arbitrage. But at the same time, we should combine it with very high quality culture. If you have a labor arbitrage combined with high quality culture, that's a lethal combination for the country to leverage on to create a very, very high mass scale jobs. Third thing, I believe industry four, I think we should not underestimate what India has. We have also unskilled and semi-skilled people, but also we have very good talent with PhDs, MTECs, and the BTECs. And these are the people who are very technology savvy. They understand technology. They talk technology as one of the members said. And about the industry four is nothing but IoT, Internet of Things. Then you combine it with services and people. Then on top of it, you have the machine learning, which basically learns how to interpret the data. And then on top of it is artificial intelligence, which allows you to take decisions. And this ecosystem, actually, whatever we may have missed in past, I think this industry four is something an opportunity where India can take lead because those elements are more soft rather than hard in nature there. And that's that's one which can really not only make us very competitive and productive locally when we produce it here and also participate on the global scene because that's where the industry is moving. Thank you very much, Sanjeev, Mr. Kalyani, short-term, medium-term, long-term, three things. I think short-term, we need to make sure that whatever India consumes, we start producing, whether it's defense, whether it's railways, whether it's energy sector, we need to start doing that. And I think that's something that just needs to happen ASAP. In the medium term, Indian industry needs to scale up dramatically because if you're talking about 25% GDP in 2025, you're talking about from $300 billion of manufactured products to $1.2 trillion of manufactured products four times in 10 years. That's a huge scale up. We just need to create that mindset. And like one of the gentlemen there said, India's brand is entrepreneurship, technology. And I think this is all that's going to come together to make that happen. And third, nobody, I think we didn't talk much about skills and skilling. I think there's a lot of work being done, but there is a lot more work that needs to be done in this area, specifically outcome-based, outcome-based skilling processes. Okay, thank you very much. John, short-term, medium-term, long-term. The short-to-mid term, I would encourage the government particularly to continue all the great work that they started there because particularly the longer history, it's unique what is happening. For the first time I see the trust really broad-based taking place here that the country is moving in the right direction. So absolutely continue on all the things that were mentioned here in terms of trade negotiations, in terms of further deregulation, etc. I should continue. I faith that it will. The big question out there is the mid-to-longer term. And there we are beginning to understand that, I would argue. AT Carney is involved together with the World Economic Forum and many companies and institutes around the world to understand what the future shape of production will be for the mid-to-longer term. And it's obviously triggered by a lot of technological developments, some which we know, like robotics for instance, but some that we are only beginning to understand, artificial intelligence. I'm not even sure we fully complement what it will be. And I would really kindly invite certainly companies in India and certainly the government in India to participate in that effort, to think that through, to grasp what it means first of all. And then to translate that into the right policies for this country and for individual companies. Well, thank you very much, John. Mr. Kant, I'm going to give you the last word. We've all heard what needs to be done. The government can do a lot of what is being talked about. So what can we expect in terms of addressing some of these issues in the short-term, medium-term and long-term? Firstly, I think Indian industry and Indian entrepreneurship must embrace technology with all its might. We've missed out on the industrial revolution. Don't miss out on the intelligent manufacturing revolution. That's critical for India. We are very advanced in software and the ability to converge with manufacturing is very, very necessary for India in the years to come. I totally agree with Mr. Kapoor that we need to lay focus on efficiency, productivity, quality. These are very, very critical things if you want to drive manufacturing in the long run. Thirdly, I think innovation and design is the key to India becoming a great manufacturing nation. Indian industry has not been patenting. Only 22% of the patents being registered in India is being done by Indian companies. Indian companies must go all out and do large-scale patenting of what they are doing. And therefore, in the long run, patents are very critical. Fourthly, I think it's important that states become champions of manufacturing. Twelve states driving manufacturing in a big way, unleashing power by bringing in reforms on labor, land, et cetera, will enable India to become a great manufacturing nation. Well, thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for joining us here this morning. I think there's a lot of meat on the table on what needs to be done by government, by industry, separately and together. I think the most significant takeaway, perhaps, from the conversation and the dialogue that we've had this morning is that we can achieve that goal of 25% by 2025 in terms of manufacturing output to GDP if we're all talking in the same language, if we're all aligned and working towards the same goal and the same objective, which hasn't been the case in India very often. So hopefully, all stakeholders will move in the same direction and that is forward. Appreciate your time. Thank you very much for joining us here on the CNBC TV18 special discussion. Thanks.