Industry leaders cutting across sectors have come forward in support of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visionary programme ? Make in India ? aimed at harnessing country’s vast talent pool to develop the country into a global manufacturing hub. Though concerns remain, particularly from the multinationals, that India is not the easiest country to do business with wide prevalence of bureaucratic red tape, unstable tax laws and rigid labour regime, there is also a degree a confidence in the current government that things would be turned around for the benefit of the industry.

“We are fully confident that, under the Make in India programme of the Prime Minister, factors that adversely affect the competitiveness of manufacturing will now be removed quickly,? said Kenichi Ayukawa, Managing Director and CEO, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, at the launch of ‘Make in India’ campaign in the Capital.

He said that though India is not the easiest country to do business in because of various government policies, procedures, regulations and the way some of the laws are implemented, Maruti had spearheaded manufacturing in the country and today has helped in developing a manufacturing eco-system that has resulted in cars being exported to various parts of the globe.

Resonating a similar tone, Reliance Group chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani said that the company was spearheading manufacturing the country and its over Rs 1.8 lakh crore investments, with potential to generate 1.25 lakh jobs, will fructify in 12-15 months.

He said in order to succeed in the ‘Make in India’ movement it is important to be open to capital and expertise from all over the globe and make India one market through implementation of GST. “It is important to connect village clusters with the international markets and not only domestic markets by building the physical infrastructure and virtual infrastructure so that all our goods and services are connected to all markets,” Ambani said.

“Our aspirations on the global manufacturing arena will be fulfilled if we address certain challenges on priority. These factors will include the build-up of critical infrastructure across the country supported by stable policies, transparent and competitive tax and duty structure, efficient and time-bound administration through the use of e-governance, cost effective and reliable energy coupled with logistics, critical for the competitiveness of industry,” Tata Group chief Cyrus Mistry said.

ICICI Bank Managing Director and CEO Chanda Kochhar said the new programme would become the next growth driver for the country. “What is being launched today is actually going to be the next growth driver for India…It is believed that manufacturing, if it works to its full potential, can add about 9 crore jobs in the next decade for India,” she said.

Exuding confidence on India’s competitiveness, Aditya Birla Group Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla said: “India has come to be know as global IT hub and reservoir of intellectual capital. It’s high time that India becomes a preferred centre of choice for manufacturing for global companies.”

He agreed that there was a lot of catching up to do for India to boost its manufacturing but said that only this would be key to sustaining country in the higher growth trajectory for a long period of time.

The share of manufacturing in India’s GDP is low at 16% as compared to 36% in China, 34% South Korea and 22% Germany.

Exuding confidence that things will move forward, Bharat Forge Executive Director Amit Kalyani said: “Following this, my confidence of investing and the speed of investing will go up.”

Bharti Enterprises Vice Chairman Rajan Bharti Mittal said: “It is a great initiative but it will really depend on the ground, how much it takes shape. So once that happens I am sure things will start working.”