Category Archives: MSME

Challenges in Indigenisation

Part 5 -Contd from part 4:

It is a well known fact that the military applications are the primary focus of most technological research. With every new generation of new technology, the previous generation is released for industrial and consumer applications. In this context, it is most natural that no foreign OEM would provide Indian Armed Services with TOT of current technology. Whatever is sold is at least one or two generations old. In the case of old platforms like the Jaguar aircraft of the IAF, this would be three generations old. Hence, it is not such a daunting task for Indian companies to indigenise products of that generation, provided one is sensitized to the specialized performance requirements of this sector. This includes design, manufacture, qualification testing and certification to very stringent military standards that most non-defense organisations are not exposed to. This is all the more the reason for the Armed Forces to spot, recognize, nurture and grow private organisations that possess such talent and capabilities for meeting their own long term goals of self-reliance. Is this asking for too much?

The real challenge lies not among the MSMEs, but within the Armed Forces themselves. Even among the technically qualified and trained officers, how many of them are acquainted with the fundamental tenets of aircraft systems, leave alone their design, qualification and certification? Of course, they are only expected to use the products and platforms and not design them. But, if they are the nodal officers involved in indigenisation, should they not be empowered for it? And if they do get trained in whatever manner, would it not be a waste if they get transferred every 2 or 3 years to posts that has nothing to do with indigenisation? How many of them have had an intimate involvement in indigenisation of a complete LRU and appreciate the variety of problems faced by a vendor during the whole process? Has even one officer spent one complete day in an MSME engaged in defense indigenis pied-piper ation to get a first hand account of operations of an MSME? The very fact that RFQs quote a delivery period of 3 months for projects that normally take 3 years shows the disconnect with realities. With poor MSMEs that are attracted to the pied piper singing songs of ‘billions of dollars’, should we say any more?!

Military business is all about robustness, ruggedness, high reliability, high efficiency, high technology, miniaturization, sophistication, etc. that are far beyond the perception of most non-defense industries. They therefore need to be sensitized, trained, nurtured and then sustained and this is at least a 6 to 8 year timeline as per current status. So, if the DPM and DPP continue to stick to the L1 philosophy, it is a matter of time before everyone exits irrespective of whether they are successful or otherwise. Technological competence and track record are more important than just lowest cost and therefore the current L1 policy would by itself ensure that the competent get filtered out and the incompetent just fail. Who wins this game?

D&D, Profits and Sustenance

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Part 4 – contd from Part 3:

There is a misplaced belief that Indian companies do not invest in R&D. The terms ‘Research & Development’ or ‘Design & Development’ are often misunderstood and used inappropriately. In the context of indigenisation efforts of the private sector, especially MSMEs, ‘Design & Engineering’ should be the more appropriate term. It is a well accepted fact that Indian MSMEs are highly innovative, enterprising and come up with unique solutions to various problems. Innovative ideas could range from a simple tweaking of a design or reverse engineering of a foreign OEM product. All these activities involve considerable D&E focused on the specific product. The only problem is that private industries do not have the habit of monitoring and accounting such expenditure under a separate head called ‘R&D’. This is due to the fear of the tax-man not allowing these costs as expenditures and treating them as capital investment (which it certainly is) and should result in repetitive long term returns over a period of at least 5 years. In the case of MSMEs indigenising complete LRUs or sub-systems, there is certainly a high indigenous D&D content whose risk is justified only if there is a likelihood of repetitive bulk production orders. The expected Return on Investment (ROI) has to be linked to the risks of D&D. ROI is also linked to the quantum of sales of the product over its lifecycle. Hence, the economic viability of indigenisation has to be based on future bulk production orders from the Armed Services. This is where a serious flaw exists in the indigenisation programmes of all Armed Services and DPSUs. They either do not know what their future requirements are or do not wish to reveal it. In either case, it is almost impossible for a private industry to assess whether there is any worthwhile business potential.

Yet another misconception among the Armed Services is that they have reimbursed the D&D costs to the Vendor at the end of successful completion and hence the vendor is fully compensated. They do not seem to appreciate that D&D cost is very different from the lifecycle value of the product realized. Total value realized from consumer and industrial products over their lifecycle would be more than 100 times their D&D cost. In the case of the specialized A&D sector, lose-lose it should be even higher due to the high value addition of the products. Hence, choking a vendor by not providing him serial bulk orders at least for a few years would amount to killing him without sustainability. This leads to a ‘lose-lose’ situation with both the successful vendor gradually dropping out of business and the Services losing a successful vendor, who could have multiplied his initial success into many more successful projects and graduating to higher levels of technology.

Profit was considered a dirty word in our country till recently. While it has turned decent, it still retains a gray shade among the Armed Services and DPSUs. How much or profit is ‘decent’ and how much is to be considered ‘profiteering’? Any B-school would teach that profit is all about maximization at every opportunity. Even in the background of a patriotic national sense connected with indigenisation of weapons and systems, profits allow the industries to grow and diversify multi-dimensionally. Ultimately, this becomes a national asset since the industry in involved in achieving self-reliance of defense equipment. In the absence of profits realized through repetitive sales, the industry would turn unsustainable. This appears to be the present state of MSMEs engaged in defense indigenisation. Only those who have an alternative revenue stream in a different domain are able to sustain their business even though the A&D sector is a drain on the other stream.

Attitudes and Habits

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Part 2 (Contd from Part 1): Old habits die hard. When a child gets used to spoon feeding, it will resist eating by itself. This applies equally to the Armed Services. Having got used to being fed by foreign OEMs with machines, equipment and their spare parts for over six decades, the easiest and simplest method to re-arming is to go back to them. These are buying habits that even we as individuals acquire, don’t we? So, it needs a monumental effort to change those habits. Moreover, how many of us are aware of ‘Life Cycle Costs’ and how many of us take that into consideration when buying durables? ‘Baadme dekha jayega’ (‘We’ll see later’) would be the common refrain. So is the case with the Armed Services. To be fair to them, they are always so desperate for new procurements to replace old and ageing ones that they just have to go ahead and buy whatever is offered to them. In such a scenario, indigenisation is the last thing on their mind. Add to this our obsession with anything ‘phoren’ over a ‘desi’ stuff, you get almost the entire picture.

Management theory states that resistance to any change is a natural human trait. So, if one has been buying weapons and arms from abroad for the last 50 years, he or she is part of a system that allows it to continue since it has the least resistance. People in charge of planning, budgeting, procuring, inspecting and using the items are all used to it and wont ask ‘why?’. On the other hand, if somebody says he wants to get it from an Indian vendor, all hell breaks loose. Questions like – “Why change?”, “How do you know the Indian stuff works?”, “Who will guarantee its performance?”, “How do you know it would last at least a year?”, “Who will take responsibility for this decision?”, “Who will certify the technical specifications when we dont know what the foreign OEM is supplying?”, etc. Just a few of these are enough to kill any enthusiasm about indigenisation within the Armed Service.

On the other side of the fence are the thousands of private industries who have been attracted to the ‘billion dollar’ annual procurements highlighted by the pied pipers of the bureaucracy and Armed Services. Nobody tells them about, leave alone train them on the highly stringent quality and certification standards that need to be met. This is somewhat like a kid that has been persuaded to get into the shallow end of the swimming pool by the coach who then invites the student to swim towards him while he himself surreptitiously keeps moving towards the deep end! Once the student has gone out of the shallow end, he has no option other than to thrash around and hope to somehow reach the nearest handrail. The only difference between the two scenarios here is that in the Defense arena, the ‘coach’ just disappears after leading you in. Certainly not an enjoyable situation. But, why does this happen? One, nobody cares. Two, nobody takes ownership for either indigenisation or nurturing of ‘vendors’ with the larger objective of achieving self-reliance. Three, officers in charge of indigenisation get transferred to other posts across the country leading to loss of continuity. Four, a DRDO or DPSU, which does not have to participate in tenders and attain L1, offers to take up the job and so the Armed Services are obliged to give them the order even if they are 20 times costlier. Five, the need for the item just disappears due to bureaucratic delays. The list can go on and on.

Does the poor vendor survive or drown?

Watch this space to know more.

Defense Indigenisation – some hard facts

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The CII in partnership with the Indian Air Force had organised yet another seminar on indigenisation on 23^rd May 2017. As is usual at such events, presentations from senior representatives from IAF and DPSUs laid out the ‘huge’ opportunities for Indian industries, particularly MSMEs. On the contrary, a CII-KPMG report titled ‘India as an aerospace hub – Opportunities, challenges and way forward”, circulated among participants, had this to say on the opening page –

“Unpredictable demand, lumpy orders and extreme pressure on pricing makes the risk of aerospace business significantly high. Aerospace manufacturing for the defense sector is even tougher given that there’s only one client”. It goes further to state “…. negotiations, approvals and payments can really test one’s patience”. What I presented that day was even more blunt and down to earth.

This blog provides an insight into the hurdles in the system that have inhibited progress in defense indigenisation. The blog is in several parts, addressing multiple issues connected with all stake-holders.

Part 1: Ground Realities

The A&D business in India is literally unsustainable all by itself, more particularly from the point of view of an MSME. This is obvious for any insider, whether in a DPSU or DRDO or the Armed Services. But, nobody dares say this in public since they are expected to toe the line of the higher ups and provide lip service to attract unsuspecting MSMEs to burn their fingers and go bankrupt. Here are some interesting insights into this expensive game as it is played in India. While the focus of this article is on the IAF, the sum and substance of this article applies equally well for the Navy and Army.

The IAF puts out RFQs for indigenisation of various items that range from little rubber parts, machined parts, to complete LRUs (Line Replaceable Units are complete equipment) for some of the most aged aircraft in the world. However, it is clear that they do not really need these after they are successfully developed by an Indian firm. Imagine the plight of an MSME that spends anywhere between 30 to 100 lakhs on developing a sophisticated LRU with the fond hope of realising a stable business over the next 5 to 10 years, when no serial production orders are released subsequently. And this plight is even further exacerbated if the firm had in the interim managed to win further orders for development of other items. Pleadings with higher-ups of the IAF sometimes produces a response that says “you are doing a wonderful job for the IAF. Orders will certainly be released as and when a need arises”. Then there is dead silence for years after that.

What makes this whole business even more of a mockery is the fact that there is intense pressure on the Indian firm during the entire process of development and testing with the item classified as ‘critically required’. How this criticality turns into redundancy very soon after successful development is certainly a mystery for Indian companies. And when this repeats again and again, this mystery gives way to misery. This is certainly not a test of patience as suggested in the CII report, but one of anger management.

For anyone with a deep insight into the operations of a DPSU and the Indian Armed Services, it is all crystal clear. The reason why things don’t work will be elaborated in Part 2 of this blog.

Challenges & Solutions for Make In India in the A&D sector

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CHALLENG Defexpo 2016-title ES FOR MAKE IN INDIA IN THE A&D SECTOR

The ‘Make in India’ campaign seems to focus on ‘Build to print’ as per drawings supplied by a foreign OEM. While this may provide some short-term benefits, it will not lead to self-reliance in the long term. Experts in the A&D arena have openly acknowledged that the so-called ‘Transfer of Technology’ has never resulted in any provision of core technology other than basic manufacturing and maintenance documents. To be truly self-sufficient in this critical sector, we need to Create, Innovate, Design, and Manufacture in India through indigenous R&D.

Any entrepreneur desiring to design and manufacture for the A&D sector faces many challenges. These are:

Internal:

Lack of specialised domain knowledge and awareness of the stringent quality standards and military This is a result of the historical confinement of the domain within DPSUs for the last six decades with no access to the private sector.
Capability to design equipment to overcome harsh conditions imposed by extremes of temperature, humidity, altitude, vibrations, corrosive atmosphere, etc.
Competence to engage in technical discussions with certification authorities.
Multi-disciplinary domain knowledge that is essential for holistic design and manufacture.

External

Delays in all processes up to several years for even a small project. Tender bids are required to be valid for at least six months and often for 12 months.
Small volumes leading to problems in sourcing specialised components at competitive prices.
Uncertainty about future production orders for an indigenisation product.
Availability of trained workforce

While the responsibility to develop competency in the domain rests with the entrepreneur, the external challenges above are detailed as follows:

RFQ and tender stage:

One of the greatest challenges relates to lack of ownership and decision making in the DPSUs and the Armed Services. It often takes two years for a requirement to mature to an RFQ, even for ‘critically required’ LRUs, sub-assemblies and spare parts. The subsequent process of tender evaluation, price negotiation and order release takes at least 6 months. In many cases, orders are not released even after the L1 vendor has attended price negotiation meetings. These are highly demotivating to an entrepreneur. In most cases, technical specifications of the OEM equipment are not even available with the tendering agency and the RFQ states ‘Generation of technical specifications is a part of the indigenisation process’. If this is so, how does a bidder specify what he would deliver and how does the tendering agency evaluate the bid?

Small volumes

In most cases, annual quantities of specialised parts and equipment are in single digits. This makes purchase of specialised, military grade raw materials and components very difficult. These include even screws, nuts, washers, consumables, etc., that are used on airborne equipment. This imposes either very high costs on a small quantity, or a large inventory of unused materials.

Qualification Testing

Before the indigenised unit can be integrated into a military platform, it needs to be qualified by subjecting it to stringent life-cycle tests. This includes expensive EMI/EMC and Environmental testing that is only carried out in a few specially equipped laboratories. These tests can by themselves cost anywhere from Rs.6 to 10 lakhs.
Qualification tests are to be conducted in Govt. approved test agencies. While large corporates are able to afford investments in expensive test facilities within their organisation, MSMEs find it unaffordable. MSMEs therefore have to rely on external service providers such as DRDO or DPSUs. Time slots at such external agencies are very difficult to obtain for a private company. This hurts the progress of the projects leading to cost escalation. Reputed test houses in the private sector are far more expensive than govt. controlled agencies.

Serial Production

There have been many instances where no production orders have been placed after indigenous development of even a ‘critically required’ item that has been designed, tested and qualified by a vendor. This is a complete let down and one of the demotivators for design entrepreneurs to enter this sector.

Funding and cash flow

Funding for long gestation A&D development projects is just not available. Indian banks and funding agencies do not appreciate the value of research, design and development. While the present Indian Govt. has proposed to set up a Defence R&D Fund for MSMEs, the modalities of making this available to genuine entrepreneurs is yet to be formalised.

Availability of trained workforce

Trained workforce, especially design engineers, are simply not available due to disconnect between industry and the academia. This is even more severe in the specialised A&D sector.

Conclusions & Suggestions:

DRDO and DPSUs should facilitate domain specific knowledge sharing with A&D MSMEs to empower them to appreciate the intricacies and challenges of indigenous development.
Funding mechanisms for long gestation D&D projects need to be created on priority since this involves self-reliance in defence and aerospace. One method could be the award of rating points (similar to credit rating by CIBIL), proportional to the value of A&D related orders successfully executed by an MSME. The accumulation of points would indicate the maturity and capability of the vendor. These could be accumulated and monetised for obtaining special financing from Public Sector Banks, as well as for proportional reduction of monetary Performance Guarantees to the customers.
Establishment of virtual clusters of MSMEs linked to larger private companies or DPSUs/DRDO will result in an organised growth of MSMEs with specialised aerospace domain knowledge that can ultimately lead to complete indigenous equipment and systems development capability over time.
The same ecosystem can then be leveraged by the educational institutions for teaching as well as training the graduates in the field of A&D, within industries on live projects. Engineering colleges today teach the aeronautical subjects without even a physical contact with a live aircraft or engine.
Materials Bank to be established for easy availability of commonly used military grade raw materials and standard parts for MSMEs.
Establishing testing labs by the Government, exclusively for use by private MSMEs or by directing a priority allotment of time slots at govt. labs.
Excise duties, Service Tax and VAT (GST) should be exempted for all related inputs as well as the final product/services. It does not make any sense for duties and taxes to be paid from one Govt. account to another through the intermediary private vendor who has to also deal with the cash flow issue.

There is no dearth of technology and competencies among Indian private sector industries in undertaking challenging indigenisation projects. All they need is a friendly and supportive induction into the sector.

The original article appeared in the Defexpo 2016 Show Daily of Geopolitics Magazine on March 30, 2016.

Budget 2016: To boost start-ups, find quick cure for the ‘pain of doing business’ in India

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The annual budget exercise of the government has turned into more of an occasion for raging media debates and controversies than a sound and logical process of provisioning financial allocations for planned revenues and expenditures.

The fact that tax and duty rates are altered almost every year, by itself shows a lack of clear long-term planning while encouraging unreasonable expectations from society and industry.Budget should also quantify tax incentives for investors as proposed in the ‘Start-up India Action Plan’

An astute business instinct is truly reflected in our PM’s leanings towards encouraging business and industry, more particularly the small ‘Start-ups’. I sincerely believe that the flagship ‘Start-up India’ campaign should be seen as a clarion call of the PM to every Indian to ‘wake up and start working’ rather than limit it to only business start-ups.

No business or industry can operate efficiently and competitively if rest of society and the bureaucracy does not. Aspirations have to rise collectively rather than individually. It is only then that financial allocations can have any impact on society as a whole. Having said that, ‘Start-ups’ are the new-found bandwagon across the country with a national slogan to boot. With global luminary CEOs to add their flavours to the campaign, it is obvious that Budget 2016 would be scoured for any and all support, incentives and subsidies for ‘Start-ups’. So, what is it that they really need?

First and foremost, it would be funds and investors. The most empowering feature of the budget could be to confirm and quantify the tax incentives for investors as proposed in the ‘Start-up India Action Plan’. Extending this further, it is also necessary to incentivise the private sector for creation of new Incubation Centres since this is one of the key enablers of a Start-up ecosystem.

Investments in Incubation Centres should also be entitled to at least some tax incentives. Differential rates of taxes and duties have been used in the past for encouraging certain types of industries as well as for setting them up in undeveloped areas. This scheme could now be used to encourage setting up ‘Start-ups’ in Tier 2 and Tier 3 towns.

This would have multiple benefits for investors, employers as well as creating new employment opportunities in smaller towns. Operating costs would also be lower. Of course, this would have to be coupled with improving infrastructure in the smaller towns, but isn’t this what the PM and his team are proposing every day? None of the above would make any impact unless the much talked about ‘pain of doing business in India’ changes to ‘ease of doing business’ in the real sense. The Start-up Action Plan also talks of achieving this.

It must however be emphasised that ‘Ease of Doing Business’ should be the norm across all categories of businesses, and not just for Start-ups, if India has to achieve the growth figures it aims for. To this end, the 3-year concessional period exclusively for Start-ups is meaningless. Although today’s start-ups are all in a connected flat world, and establishing digital connectivity is far easier than physical, the creation of ‘Start-up Clusters’ with all required infrastructure located within the physical boundaries of the Cluster would be beneficial in many ways.

Considering the fact that the entrepreneurs founding a start-up have no time to run around setting up the nitty-gritty of infrastructure, common facilities like stable power with stand-by gen sets, telecom, transport bays, clean and basic residential accommodation, virtual office or common office facilities, etc. could be created by the government itself as the facilitator. This would save precious funds and time for the entrepreneur.

Incubation centre could also be co-located. With remote online monitoring and a bunch of progressive bureaucrats involved, this dream is realisable. However, this needs a sizeable investment by the Governments, both Central and State. If the Government can be convinced, the budget needs to make a significant allocation for Start-up clusters across the country.

Ultimately, the Union Budget is only one of the contributors to achieve the various policies of the government of the day through allocation of the necessary funds. Much more needs to be done on the ground, in a sustained and committed manner, to achieve the goals of ‘Start-up India’.

The Original article appeared on First Post.

Defence Procurement Procedure’s new avatar inspiring; some players seek more tweaking

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The much-awaited changes to India’s Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) were announced last month. This was in line with the promise made by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, after he took over the reins of Ministry of Defence in November 2014. The new look DPP, set to take shape in the next two months, gives major impetus to the Narendra Modi government’s flagship Make in India mission. It has some inspiring elements to boost Indian private companies to undertake research and development in the aerospace and defence (A&D) sector.

OneIndia elicited the views of some of the private A&D players to capture the mood of the industry, which has always felt that enough is not being done to win their hearts. Here are the excerpts from a series of interviews we did recently. Offset mechanism not working in interest of country G Raj Narayan, Managing Director of Radel Advanced Technology (P) Ltd, has been a visible voice in the last couple of years in various A&D forums. He says it was clear from the beginning that the offsets mechanism wasn’t working to the interests of India. “The insistence of the foreign OEMs to dilute the same on the pretext of ‘not finding capable Indian partners’ was only an indirect method of preventing any exposure to Indian companies on related technologies.

The only way to improve our state of self-sufficiency is to develop R&D in-house and design from whatever technologies we are presently exposed to (LCA, Jaguar & Mirage), and then move upwards to higher levels indigenously,” says Raj. According to him, the raising of the offset applicability to acquisitions of Rs 2000 crore and above is irrelevant. “The higher preference to ‘indigenously designed, developed and manufactured’ items certainly makes more meaning than the vague ‘Make’ and ‘Make & Buy’ categories. This is a confirmation of the preference for Indian products which needs to be applauded. Further, the focus on enabling and empowering R&D as well as supporting MSMEs through funding is a huge step forward. Though this could still throw up problems in distinguishing between ‘mature and capable’ MSMEs and ‘raw’ MSMEs, proper processes could certainly be set up to ensure that the right company get the right amount of funding appropriate with its track record and status,” Raj added.

Radel’s ongoing projects for various military programmes include, auto-selector bomb release system, speed switch, anti-collision lights, cockpit control unit and ground test rigs of various aircraft and helicopters. Introduction of IDDM a good move Puneet Kaura, MD and CEO, Samtel Avionics, says that the introduction of a new category — Indigenous Design Development Manufacturing (IDDM) – is a welcome move. “We welcome the move to introduce the IDDM category in the DPP as it will back companies like us who have proven competencies in indigenous design, development and manufacturing. Furthermore, the announcement of funding by the government for R&D purposes will help build a technology base in the country,” says Puneet, among the early players in the A&D sector. He said the growth of the Indian defence industry has been marred by delays.

“The new DPP addresses this through a definitive step to cut down the delays in procurement by reducing the time lag between AoN (acceptance of necessity) and the tender or request for proposal (RFP),” says Puneet. Samtel through its joint venture with HAL, has been developing MFDs for Su-30 MKI within its facility in Greater Noida. The Samtel-HAL JV has already delivered 125 sets of MFDs for Su-30 MKIs. Will boost investments and better quality of products According to Rajeev Kaul, MD & Group CFO, Aequs, told OneIndia that that take on LI policy in the new-look DPP is a positive step. “L1 policy is a bold move and it credits the capability of the bidder. This would encourage quality consciousness and boost investments in better quality products,” says Rajeev.

Aequs has been supplying main landing gear shackle for the B787 programme. Aequs manufacturing facilities are located in Belagavi, Bengaluru, and Houston. Offset limit should be brought back to Rs 300 crore Col H.S. Shankar (Retd), CMD, Alpha Design Technologies Pvt Ltd, feels that increasing the offset applicability limit is a retrograde step and will deny Indian industry, particularly MSMEs, large chunk of their work content. “It is our view that offsets (with Rs 300 00 crore and above limit) was working satisfactorily (except for few glitches at MoD) and benefiting Indian Industries enormously. This will be a big blow to Indian industries. The limit should be reviewed and brought back to Rs 300 crore.

He said the MSMEs/FICCI had listed many suggestions to the the DPP Review Committee, but they were not accepted. “We wanted the ‘Make’ category to be split into two categories: ‘Make’ large industries with higher limits and ‘Make’ MSMEs with a limit of funding up to Rs 500 crore per project,” says Col Shankar. Commenting on the ‘strategic partners,’ the veteran A&D expert felt that it was a retrograde move of brining in ‘public sector mentality’ into private sector by reserving few big players in private sector. “This is a back door entry for big private sectors – something which Kelkar Committee had recommended as ‘Udyog Ratnas’ in 2016 and rejected and not implemented by successive governments,” says Col Shankar.

MSME categorisation limits for A&D products must go up Naresh Palta, CEO (Aerospace), Maini Group, said the government funding of 90 per cent for indigenous R&D will spur domestic products and technologies. He also felt that ‘accepting offers in single tender cases’ would remove major hurdles for industries developing niche products. However, Palta felt that the DPP’s new avatar is silent on measures for SME segment. “We want the new policy to increase MSME categorisation limits up to Rs 150 crore for A&D projects specifically. Further taxation relief to Indian products vis-à-vis imports, for level playing. We are still unable to compete our products in the domestic requirements with imported ones due to higher duties and taxation incident,” says Palta.

The original article appeared on OneIndia.

MSMEs should scale up their capabilities

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Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises will have to scale up their capabilities to design and manufacture parts, sub-assemblies as well as complete products which requires a wide variety of skills, said G Raj Narayan, founder and MD Radel Group and Chief Mentor of Drona.

Speaking at a Plenary Session at the 103rd Indian Science Congress on Aims to focus on the Make In India initiative with particular reference to the Defence and Aerospace sector’, he said that MSMEs in India contribute more than 45 per cent of the industrial output and hence constitute a large section of the manufacturing chains of almost all products. He said that ‘Make in India’ opens up far more opportunities of raising their value proposition than being mere vendors to the large DPSUs.

Considering that less than 10 per cent of the engineers churned out of Indian colleges are found to be employable in the core engineering industries, imparting practical skills is the need of the hour for MII to succeed.
Institutions such as the Drona School of Engineering Practice, which orients engineers to practical hands-on exposure to high value engineering skills in an industrial environment, are the way forward.
The ‘Make in India’ is a paradigm shift from the past two decades of Indian obsession with IT and ITeS services during which manufacturing industries were allowed to collapse.

There appears to be a new found realization of the benefits of manufacturing A&D products in India for domestic consumption rather than import them.
However, ‘Make in India’ goes beyond just manufacturing, to design, innovate, manufacture and support in India.
Viewed holistically, this has profound implications across a wide section of businesses.
It involves huge numbers of creative engineers, technicians, professors, research scholars, sales, marketing and support staff, etc.
all of whom need to possess specialized skills, he added.

The original article appeared on UniIndia.

Skill set development for the A&D sector – An MSME perspective

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This Plenary session on January 7, 2016, at the Indian Science Congress being held in Mysore, aims to focus on the Make In India initiative with particular reference to the Defence and Aerospace sector.

The ‘Make in India’ is a paradigm shift from the past two decades of Indian obsession with IT and ITeS services during which manufacturing industries were allowed to collapse. There appears to be a new found realization of the benefits of manufacturing A&D products in India for home consumption rather than import them. However, ‘Make in India’ goes beyond just manufacturing, to design, innovate, manufacture and support in India. Viewed holistically, this has profound implications across a wide section of businesses. It involves huge numbers of creative engineers, technicians, professors, research scholars, sales, marketing and support staff, etc. all of whom need to possess specialized skills.

MSMEs in India contribute more than 45% of the industrial output of the country and hence constitute a large section of the manufacturing chains of almost all products. ‘Make in India’ opens up far more opportunities of raising their value proposition than being mere vendors to the large DPSUs. MSMEs will now have to scale up their capabilities to design and manufacture parts, sub-assemblies as well as complete products. This requires a wide variety of skills.

Considering that less than 10% of the engineers churned out of Indian colleges are found to be employable in the core engineering industries, imparting practical skills is the need of the hour for MII to succeed. Institutions such as the Drona School of Engineering Practice, which orients engineers to practical hands-on exposure to high value engineering skills in an industrial environment, are the way forward.

Is ease of doing business only for foreign investors?

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There is an urgent need to cut unnecessary costs that hinder Indian businesses. PM Narendra Modi has been travelling far and wide to invite foreign companies to invest and ‘Make in India’ with an assurance that doing business in India is going to be made far easier than it has been so far. From a foreign investor’s point of view, it is not the number of places that India goes up the bottom of the ladder that matters, but the actual position towards the top of that ladder that the Indian government intends to reach. But the more important question in every Indian businessman’s mind is whether this so-called ‘ease’ is only meant for foreign investors with Indian businesses continuing to suffer all the woes.

‘Make in India’, ‘Defence Indigenisation’, ‘Self-reliance’ and ‘Digital India’ are great slogans for creating the hype, and also causes the hungry Indian businesses to salivate. If our PM is serious about enabling and empowering Indian businesses to play in the competitive global market place, everything boils down to competitive costs, whether for local consumption or exports. Let us look at what these costs include. The adage ‘Time is money’ is certainly not understood either in our bureaucracy or government decision-making, and least of all, our honourable judiciary. ‘Delivery time is the essence of the contract’, says a purchase order of a DPSU that takes eight months to process tender bids for a relatively low value item.

‘Ease’ of Funding: ‘Funds, funds, funds’ is the cry of the most MSMEs across the country. Various glorified schemes exist on paper, but rarely made available even to the most successful of entrepreneurs with orders worth crores on hand. An MSME entrepreneur is expected to kneel and beg, and work through the maze of red-tape, only to get a few crumbs thrown to him while companies providing ‘good times in the sky’ get crores even if they are bound to result in NPAs. Private funds are available for budding startups — preferably in the online space— but for the manufacturing industry this comes at a significant cost.

‘Ease’ of Regulations: Tax authorities are accorded enormous powers that are often abused. The sales tax department goes around attaching banks accounts of assesses on flimsy grounds so that it can show inflated revenue collections even if these are bound to be refunded a few years later after judicial intervention. The businesses meanwhile, suffer a huge cost that is never reimbursed, not even the interest on the amount unfairly seized by the government.

Many MSMEs have faced this situation, and have had to take one of these three hard decisions, all of which involve significant financial costs: (a) bribe their way out of it (most MSMEs opt for this solution), (b) go through the lengthy judicial process (very few MSMEs have the courage and patience to go through this) or – for several entrepreneurs, the worst but only option—(c) take the financial hit and shut down. Why should assessment officers be empowered to execute summary assessments overruling evidence in spite of an assessee filing all the required documents? If there is no cost attached to such malpractices of the bureaucracy it makes merry at the cost of the entrepreneur.

Income tax and Central Excise departments are no different. Refunds are rarely made within three or four years leading to loss of interest which is a cost to the entrepreneur. The Legal Metrology Department too has joined the party, confiscating electronic white goods ridiculously classifying them as ‘packaged, commodities’ that require registration with the department.

‘Ease’ of Labour: What about costs imposed by outdated labour laws? Anything and everything can be contested in a labour court, even if an employer has abided by the laws. This leads to litigation costs as well as unproductive wages being incurred in one form or the other, besides fees to consultants and advocates. If labour reforms are only going to target garage operations with less than 40 workmen, does it mean that larger MSMEs will continue to face the woes of running a manufacturing establishment?

‘Ease’ of Infrastructure: Certainly not the least important, infrastructure costs add significant amounts. Shortage of electricity has been a perennial problem in Karnataka for decades, and businesses are forced to operate on DGs which imposes multiple costs if an employee needs to spend three hours travelling to work in a messy city such as Bengaluru, that is a cost due to unproductive time. By the time the much hyped ‘Namma Metro’ achieves full connectivity, it would itself be as congested as the Mumbai trains, which would be self-defeating.

Cost of urban land, provided to foreign investors at a fraction of what is charged to Indian MSMEs, makes the whole business proposition unviable. If any subsidised rates are offered, it comes with ‘hidden’ costs. The lion of ‘Make in India’ will continue to sleep, or subsist with low value addition ‘manufacturing’ using CKD kits of MNCs as long as we fail to look for holistic and long-term solutions involving both the State and Central Governments.

The original article appeared on Deccan Herald.