Modi govt has been quietly following the idea of Aatmanirbharta for the past seven years

Modi govt has been quietly following the idea of Aatmanirbharta for the past seven years

• By Staff Writer

Modi govt has been quietly following the idea of Aatmanirbharta for the past seven years

During the peak Covid period in May last year, Swedish automotive safety equipment supplier, Autoliv, was scouting for a land parcel of 50-60 acres to build a new manufacturing facility for airbag inflators. The company’s first choice was China or Vietnam but it was open to India as well. It set a few conditions — a reasonable land price plus the site’s proximity to a city and a port having licence to carry explosives. The last was need as the inflation of an airbag during a vehicle crash involves the ignition of chemical propellants and stored gas.

Executives in Invest India, an expenditure facilitation agency under the Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry, proposed five sites to the company — three in Tamil Nadu and two in Andhra Pradesh. Finally, after multiple site visits, in September the company zeroed in on a 50-acre site at Cheyyar (or Tiruvetipuram) in Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu.

Neeraj Mittal, MD and CEO of the Tamil Nadu Industrial Guidance and Export Promotion Bureau, told ET Magazine that Autoliv would invest about Rs 100 crore for this venture. Invest India CEO Deepak Bagla adds, “If a global company prefers India over China or Vietnam, it simply reinforces the India story.”

Autoliv’s foray into India for making airbag inflators, both for domestic market and export, is a classic example of Make in India. But the government’s manufacturing policy, as it stands today, has gone beyond inviting multinationals to set up factories in India.

It’s now betting on what’s called Aatmanirbharta (self reliance), a step ahead of Make in India, and linking the newer policy to a massive dose of production incentives. While announcing Rs 1.97 lakh crore cash incentive over five years starting 2021-22 for manufacturers belonging to 13 sectors, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her recent budget speech said that the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme was meant for creating global manufacturing champions for an Aatmanirbhar Bharat.

The government has also prohibited Chinese milk products and e-cigarettes as well as imposed restrictions on several items — including agarbatti, refined palm oil, television sets, air conditioners, et al — in the last two years, keeping in mind the interests of domiciliary producers.

For NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar, Make in India (2014) to Aatmanirbharta (2020) is an upgrade. “The objective has been the same — how to enlarge India’s manufacturing sector and bring in globally competitive technology,” he says, adding that Aatmanirbharta must not be understood as synonymous with closed-door policy.