During the recent launch of Amitabh Kant’s book Made In India, Tata Group Chairman N. Chandrasekaran spoke about India’s growth potential and the factors for it. He said that Indian has a unique opportunity due to multiple reasons and listed 3 particular transitions that are moving India towards its future growth targets. He said that “We need to give ourselves a chance, make bets and take risks.”
The three transitions listed by him were i) Digital/AI, ii) Energy, and iii) Supply Chains. He said that in all three of them, India is probably the best placed country in the world.
Chandrasekaran said that when it comes to Digital/AI, no other has demonstrated the large scale digital intervention and platform for public services delivery, as India. He also said that we as a country have the best and the biggest talent pool available to augment our tech infrastructure.
Moving on to Energy, he said we’re probably the only country engaged in energy transitions for growth, unlike others that are looking at it for substitution. He said that whatever our GDP growth targets are for the next 5 years, the energy transition will facilitate achieving the same.
Coming to Supply Chains, he started by saying that globally supply chains are being rebirthed and we are in the middle of that process. “I keep saying India Plus.”
Chandrasekaran stressed that India is not replacing anyone.”We have an opportunity to create a global alternative supply chain base which we call as India Plus.” The size, scale and other factors position India to take the lead in this alternative supply chain ecosystem, according to him. One can suppose that he was talking in reference to the China Plus One strategy that is bringing the manufacturing and supply chain focus from China to other countries, including India.
He also mentioned that the in the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, there has been a change in beliefs and aspirations of every Indian – across masses and across classes. He cited the example of how, in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis, we had the audacity as a country to manufacture our own vaccine, instead of importing it from various countries like others were doing.
He said that Make in India started as a slogan, turned into a movement, became a belief and now we are in the execution part of it.
