A focus on eLearning, Telehealth, 3D technology, increased digitization, alternative fuels, fewer changes in taxes, and transparency, can not only help India revive its economy but can also drive in huge FDI investment.

India has the chance to become the number one player in the automobile industry. 

If you can distribute manufacturing into clusters on the back of MSME, on the back of labour that is now available in various pockets, you can create a truly transformational new manufacturing strategy across the length and breadth of India.

If we can freeze all our tax laws for five years, simplify them, and make the entire regulatory process 100 per cent digital, it will bring a huge amount of FDI to India because of the increase in trust and transparency.

–  Shailesh Haribhakti at India Power Talk

Below are the excerpts from the first #IndiaPowerTalk by Nitin Potdar with guest speaker Shailesh Haribhakti, Chairman of Shailesh Haribhakti and Associates. The full interview has been uploaded on the India Power Talk channel on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyNymC88E3g). If you wish to use anything, please attribute to India Power Talk and Nitin Potdar.

Intro

As rightly pointed out by Deepak Bagla, CEO of Invest India, which is a foreign investment facilitation agency, India’s large domestic market makes it an attractive FDA location as companies can build economies of scale in the local market and then leverage to export their products around the world. Also, the IMF chief once said that India has worked on the fundamentals of its economy but there are problems to be addressed. That’s a huge positive and equally a big responsibility on all of us to act fast and act now. Every Indian citizen needs to put his or her best foot forward for which we need experience, insights and wisdom.

Summary

• eLearning will become a substantial portion of all our learning, training and processes to keep ahead or at least in pace with time.
• Telehealth will be much in demand.
• Government services are also likely to be delivered at home. Embedded chip-driven services will work wonders. Think of smart passports and land digitization.
• We require the embracing and adaptation of the movement towards alternative fuels – biofuels, methanol, ethanol, electric vehicles, battery-driven power or hydrogen power.
• 3D printing machinery is a big opportunity in India.

Shailesh Haribhakti, a Chartered Accountant, Cost Accountant, Certified Internal Auditor, Financial Planner and Fraud Examiner has an illustrious career spanning over four decades. Eloquoting about ‘Reviving India and India’s growth story’, he says, “Only five sectors make up an overwhelming proportion of our GDP and of our population engagement. Amongst the very significant components that constitute the overall GDP business are digital businesses (constitute 7-10 per cent), agriculture (15-18 per cent), micro, small and medium enterprises, mobility and construction, and finally, the retail industry.” 

Chairman of Shailesh Haribhakti and Associates and on the board of many top listed Indian companies including L&T Finance, this stalwart shares, “The one index which has now turned positive is the Nasdaq. It delivered a 0.8% growth in 2020. Reason? The amazing performance of the digital businesses of the world – Facebook, Amazon, Alphabet, Netflix, Google. All of them have performed brilliantly. eLearning will become a substantial portion of all our learning, training and processes to keep ahead or keep at least in pace with time.”

According to him, the second most obvious thing is telehealth. “It is impossible in terms of the doctor-patient ratios that the world has, and particularly India has, to manage the pandemic that we are all suffering from without telehealth.”

According to Mr. Haribhakti, government services are also likely to be delivered at home. Embedded chip-driven services will work wonders. “Think of a smart passport which has an IoT chip embedded in it. It would automatically record all your movements in and out of the country. So many things can be delivered if land digitization is finally accepted and put into practice. Technology for it exists,” he opined. 

Life will get easier and simpler at multiple levels. “Imagine with the plentiful harvest, we can open up community kitchens. A whole lot of dispute resolution in rural areas will be completed. At the SME level, one can buy additive manufacturing-driven machinery at affordable costs. We require the embracing and adaptation of the movement towards alternative fuels – biofuels, methanol, ethanol, electric vehicles, battery-driven power, hydrogen power, whatever. This is now a crying need. India has the chance to become the number one player in the automobile industry. 

Apart from talking highly about technology, he shares his views on more holistic topics. “We need to create more trust, simplicity, stability and safety. Governments working with various business people, international collaborations happening at a faster pace, can create a far more trusting and dependable world.”

Discussing India becoming the manufacturing hub, Mr. Haribhakti states, “We need to shift our mindset from subtractive manufacturing. We’ve been practising it for all these years. A small manufacturing set-up has lathes, CNC machines, and a whole lot of clutter. Material is bought in bulk, put into moulds. A whole lot of inefficient inventory is created.

“What needs to be done to restart the momentum is we need to group the MSMEs,” advises Shailesh. “We need to group them by domain, group them by clusters. Make sure that they can recognize that they are strong when they come together. It’s not necessary to actually merge. Virtual mergers are good enough. Resources will need to be provided to this sector. And what are these resources? Access to technology, access to research, debt and equity. It is extremely possible. It’s very very easy to do if the mind is made up.”

Talking further about the MSME sector, he comes up with an interesting idea. “A contribution by the sovereign to a fund to support these resource requirements of the MSME sector – if that is ceded by the Government of India and the state governments in smaller measure then we could have a conjoined large fund which is multi sovereign, which will enable all of this to happen. And if they can do a first loss guarantee for 75 per cent of the debt then the kind of momentum to lend to this sector by the financial institutions can be significantly enhanced. And the entire cycle of making sure that these and bad organizations can get back on their feet can be set in motion. The resettlement of these activities, proximity to cheap labour is another opportunity which has opened up because it is now becoming important to make sure that people can live in communities that they feel safe in and are able to work in clusters. Make sure that they have the right kind of housing and ease of travel between their homes and work. Cash flows need to be released to these MSMEs starting from everything that is stuck up at the highest level, which could be a big business, which could be the government. It has to percolate down through the entire supply chain so that the cycle of cash starts rotating. 

“Manufacturing at the SME level today – technology has made it possible to buy additive manufacturing-driven machinery at affordable costs and if we can do a proof of concept for a thousand locations in India where this kind of machinery is brought in and a cluster of MSMEs is given the task of making sure that highly efficient manufacturing starts getting done using augmented manufacturing, using 3D printing. This is the time that through the fund that we talked about if this kind of availability is actually put in place we can see a transformational change for the long term. Not only will the demand in the domestic market be fulfilled but also the demand for international markets. High-quality ready-to-use made-to-order products and services can be produced using this additive manufacturing, augmented manufacturing.” 

Talking in detail about India’s readiness in terms of the regulatory framework to receive foreign investment, Mr. Haribhakti says, “We can do a few things immediately. If we can freeze all our tax laws for five years, simplify them, and make the entire regulatory process 100 per cent digital, it will bring a huge amount of FDI to India because of the increase in trust and transparency. When people believe laws are stable, interfaces are electronic and governance is digital, people begin to expect those. We don’t need any special marketing. It is natural for people to gravitate to a place which has land, resources, people and good stable systems.”

Mr. Haribhakti says it’s time to unlearn, re-learn, re-educate yourself and get ready for a completely new world.