The Big Business lobbies and Make in India
By: Amit Bhushan Date: 25th Nov. 2014
We have our hard workers in politics losing sleep to bring forth ‘industrial revolution’ and jobs in India. The ministers and lobbyists are publicly hob-nobbing to make ‘this dream come true’ and top leaders going ‘all out’ to get FDI and other forms of foreign investments into the country which we are told will spur amongst others industries like automobile, electronics and electrical, consumer durables etc. etc. This is even as some of the lobbyists both Indian and foreign spar about environment and sustainability, pollution etc. while some others offer services to raise finances for Infra like Maglev trains, railways and airways including low cost airports. Some of the elements in commercial news media have gone on some extent to raise bogey of e-waste and pathetic conditions of recycle workers/rag pickers as well but for some reason best understood by them (and their competitors as well) refrain to come up with any kind of policy solutions or any ideas around the same (don’t know if that’s lack of knowledge or corruption) and this article is to share this missing idea.
India’s bureaucracy as well as commercial media starts singing like a canary in the face of ‘activities and tricks’ that such lobbyist dish out of their hat singing paeans about their own PR role backed by certification from big industrialists and a rising stock market. It further helps if some of these lobbyists (some of which occupy high chairs in their home countries) are from advanced West or Japan with high nose and perceived financial and technical clout to solve ‘India’s problems’ and in the process ignore domestic entrepreneurs especially small ones, academia and others involved while preparing ground for large ventures backed by supporting industrialists since public perception is only about domestic businessmen being ‘Chor’. This helps the hapless unsuspecting lot among public including some of the SMEs and self employed to breathe easy and get mired in some dream that some sort of turnaround of fate may indeed happen due to the mirth of some nationalist politicians at the helm as depicted by media. The fact is that some of these lobbyist may also be making attempts to corner a larger pie by seeking to alter our domestic techno-commercial standards (whatever rudimentary settings we may have) etc. or project planning exercises; is not even touched upon ever in media due to ‘lack of evidence’. The simple fact that such lobbyist are running ball for some of their preferred industrial tycoons is not analyzed including actual implications on our population for reasons best known to ‘all’ (by now). The timing of this article is perfect when the parliamentarians are looking for brownie points and even elections are around for the comfort of readers of these articles.
The truth remains that unless the Aam Admi is conscious and questioning about each stage, the hawks remain in prowl to highjack policy. The lack of knowledge and understanding of the system including possible policy choices for decision makers is an added factor and our commercial news media has done very indeed little to bridge the information level in the process of singing paeans for their respective political messiahs. The decision making bureaucrats and politicians are of course happy to lock themselves in some decent pubs rather than actively seeking ‘policy option ideas’ for reasons understood by everyone again. This however leaves opportunity for someone to rise to bust the balloon and blame it on ‘commercial news media’ which remains distressed about what have they done.., when in effect the question is about their not doing anything; but they of course do not want to be saddled with this responsibility. It is also fashionable to dub rational and creative activists as ‘radical’ and ignore the ideas rather than holding discussions about or around them.
Let’s have a cursory look at India’s problem. We have loads of poor consumers who cannot afford very costly widgets and some of these qualify to be part of our cheap technical pool of labour. We have badly organized waste management with almost no provisions to tackle rising e-waste and such pollution. Our domestic consumer goods, electronics & electrical industry are good at design and marketing/distribution but not on mass production. We also need to be more conscious of growing energy needs including sustainability aspects and so on…
Now let’s consider a simpler solution- tweaking domestic techno-commercial standards for manufactured consumer durables to have up to 15-20% ‘used components’ and these be allowed to be marketed as ‘new’ subject to proper labeling information to consumers. This can be further supported by a lower VAT/excise ‘on exchange’ provided the energy efficiency of replacement ‘new goods’ (and we have defined ‘new’) is better then the old goods being dumped with clear obligations of recycling on the industry players across the supply chain.
Such a policy creates a competitive domestic manufacturing environment, transforms rag pickers into organized recycling players, encourages domestic commerce and makes some improvement in sustainable environment. It creates a plethora of jobs in dismantling old widgets as well domestic assembly of new widgets for the technical pool and includes a respite for domestic manufacturers. This allows for competing with China and satiates desire of our poor consumers though marketing such goods will have to play a role in convincing customers for a considerable period. However there would be a lot of naysayers for such proposal including hurdle sightseers. To be fair, while conceptualization is much easier than actual implementation and this will have a lot of hurdle of all kinds such as technical, commercial etc. However it is the lack of domestic talent and industry’s willingness to steer such ideas forward; which is a bigger hurdle including the lack of ability of our SMEs to organize themselves behind ideas that may be of interest to the so called unorganized lot while they continue to rally at dollops thrown in by organized large players in the form of outsourcing. This of course leaves organized large industries including foreign lobbyist to play the ‘game’ and our great commercial news media to play along free of any sins of course.
By: Amit Bhushan Date: 25th Nov. 2014
We have our hard workers in politics losing sleep to bring forth ‘industrial revolution’ and jobs in India. The ministers and lobbyists are publicly hob-nobbing to make ‘this dream come true’ and top leaders going ‘all out’ to get FDI and other forms of foreign investments into the country which we are told will spur amongst others industries like automobile, electronics and electrical, consumer durables etc. etc. This is even as some of the lobbyists both Indian and foreign spar about environment and sustainability, pollution etc. while some others offer services to raise finances for Infra like Maglev trains, railways and airways including low cost airports. Some of the elements in commercial news media have gone on some extent to raise bogey of e-waste and pathetic conditions of recycle workers/rag pickers as well but for some reason best understood by them (and their competitors as well) refrain to come up with any kind of policy solutions or any ideas around the same (don’t know if that’s lack of knowledge or corruption) and this article is to share this missing idea.
India’s bureaucracy as well as commercial media starts singing like a canary in the face of ‘activities and tricks’ that such lobbyist dish out of their hat singing paeans about their own PR role backed by certification from big industrialists and a rising stock market. It further helps if some of these lobbyists (some of which occupy high chairs in their home countries) are from advanced West or Japan with high nose and perceived financial and technical clout to solve ‘India’s problems’ and in the process ignore domestic entrepreneurs especially small ones, academia and others involved while preparing ground for large ventures backed by supporting industrialists since public perception is only about domestic businessmen being ‘Chor’. This helps the hapless unsuspecting lot among public including some of the SMEs and self employed to breathe easy and get mired in some dream that some sort of turnaround of fate may indeed happen due to the mirth of some nationalist politicians at the helm as depicted by media. The fact is that some of these lobbyist may also be making attempts to corner a larger pie by seeking to alter our domestic techno-commercial standards (whatever rudimentary settings we may have) etc. or project planning exercises; is not even touched upon ever in media due to ‘lack of evidence’. The simple fact that such lobbyist are running ball for some of their preferred industrial tycoons is not analyzed including actual implications on our population for reasons best known to ‘all’ (by now). The timing of this article is perfect when the parliamentarians are looking for brownie points and even elections are around for the comfort of readers of these articles.
The truth remains that unless the Aam Admi is conscious and questioning about each stage, the hawks remain in prowl to highjack policy. The lack of knowledge and understanding of the system including possible policy choices for decision makers is an added factor and our commercial news media has done very indeed little to bridge the information level in the process of singing paeans for their respective political messiahs. The decision making bureaucrats and politicians are of course happy to lock themselves in some decent pubs rather than actively seeking ‘policy option ideas’ for reasons understood by everyone again. This however leaves opportunity for someone to rise to bust the balloon and blame it on ‘commercial news media’ which remains distressed about what have they done.., when in effect the question is about their not doing anything; but they of course do not want to be saddled with this responsibility. It is also fashionable to dub rational and creative activists as ‘radical’ and ignore the ideas rather than holding discussions about or around them.
Let’s have a cursory look at India’s problem. We have loads of poor consumers who cannot afford very costly widgets and some of these qualify to be part of our cheap technical pool of labour. We have badly organized waste management with almost no provisions to tackle rising e-waste and such pollution. Our domestic consumer goods, electronics & electrical industry are good at design and marketing/distribution but not on mass production. We also need to be more conscious of growing energy needs including sustainability aspects and so on…
Now let’s consider a simpler solution- tweaking domestic techno-commercial standards for manufactured consumer durables to have up to 15-20% ‘used components’ and these be allowed to be marketed as ‘new’ subject to proper labeling information to consumers. This can be further supported by a lower VAT/excise ‘on exchange’ provided the energy efficiency of replacement ‘new goods’ (and we have defined ‘new’) is better then the old goods being dumped with clear obligations of recycling on the industry players across the supply chain.
Such a policy creates a competitive domestic manufacturing environment, transforms rag pickers into organized recycling players, encourages domestic commerce and makes some improvement in sustainable environment. It creates a plethora of jobs in dismantling old widgets as well domestic assembly of new widgets for the technical pool and includes a respite for domestic manufacturers. This allows for competing with China and satiates desire of our poor consumers though marketing such goods will have to play a role in convincing customers for a considerable period. However there would be a lot of naysayers for such proposal including hurdle sightseers. To be fair, while conceptualization is much easier than actual implementation and this will have a lot of hurdle of all kinds such as technical, commercial etc. However it is the lack of domestic talent and industry’s willingness to steer such ideas forward; which is a bigger hurdle including the lack of ability of our SMEs to organize themselves behind ideas that may be of interest to the so called unorganized lot while they continue to rally at dollops thrown in by organized large players in the form of outsourcing. This of course leaves organized large industries including foreign lobbyist to play the ‘game’ and our great commercial news media to play along free of any sins of course.