Main reason is still a lack of infrastructure which keeps production costs high. If you want price sensitive items to be mass produced in India, the cost of manufacTuring per unit has to be very low. That is what China achieved.
The problem we have is several big infrastructure projects are running beyond deadline. EDFC and WDFC originally were slated for completion by 2020. But the thing is still lagging on and on. Bharatmala despite increased speed is still lagging as the whole road network is not available. Even if we have 6 lane expressways built in remote areas the areas where we connect to major cities and industrial areas are all stuck due to land issues, politics etc. So, the end to end road - from a port into a congested urban area, is never available for transport for a long time.
then cities like Mumbai and Kolkata are a total let down. Despite having an early advantage, both of them have now become so poor and backward. Bengaluru area is the only city that ranks anywhere decently in the innovation index at 60th rank. All of China’s big city clusters are in top 10 in the world. Mumbai is ranked like 99 and Kolkata and other cities are not even on the top 100 in the list. Such is the pathetic state of our urban areas.
Urban areas are the engines of growth. We constantly underinvest in urban areas and then wonder why our growth is not like China’s.
We must identify 4 to 5 cities and make them world class with top class infrastructure for everything from living to health to education to R&D to urban transport. These cities need to be able to get jobs that can get people to an average $30000 per capita income. Plus there should be no political interference in businesses whatsoever. That is when high class talent will work in such cities and innovate.
China did this. Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Chengdu, Chongqing, Xian, Wuhan - all have been developed really well. The per capita income in top 5 of this list is already at $30000, with central business district per capita at $60000. That means there are sizable number of $60000 jobs.
Meanwhile our cities are languishing with broken infrastructure, heavy politics, “india lives in its villages” stupidity, not respecting innovators and wealth creators, pathetic salary for science and research jobs, massive urban slum population holding everyone back etc.
Look at what our stupid politicians did to Adar Poonawalla - drove him out of the country. Now they are looking to setup manufacturing overseas.
These are job creators and wealth creators. With such disrespect, people will always have this fear that the stupid socialists will burn this country and be reluctant to freely work and innovate in India.
Playing extreme socialist and poverty politics never works.
