Believe it or Not Smart City, Digital India and Make in India is not just slogan

During past 18 months and more we are made to believe the strength of the government is in its resolve to pursue the popular programs so listed by new dawn of digital era who wish to take the world economy upfront. It was said, India is now getting prepared to take the economy by its horn, the projections even after months have been bullish by the agencies. Even though the market did not respond so well to the call for investment it tanked to lowest level post diwali, The investors in the infrastructure is hard to come by, given the budgetary provisions which might foresee the light within next week should give boost to investment climate. The basics are right for India, but the digital divide which shortened due to penetration of mobile telephony made to believe the real strength of Indian people and enterprise is yet to come.

The strong linkages established in the government programmes like Smart City, Digital India and Make in India makes us believe the government is serious, but not so good feeling when we look at the penetration of the program. The participation of the state government is low, and corporate are shying away from making the commitments. The revival of the Smart city program with more cities are likely to join is hard when cities do not commit easily to the pending reforms. The infrastructure and investment plans where all in place in so called 'Smart cities' when during the earlier phases of JNNURM the City Development Plans were prepared. There is ample scope for reforms but the state's not ruled by the party in power at the center finds it hard to accept, mostly due to political polarization in development agenda.

The people are now made to believe in virtual environments, the sales pitch of the e-comm. sites coupled with delivery prangs shows the purchasing power of the Indian consumers. But with lack of growth in real estate sector, and slowing of demands in key sectors, there is hard learning for the manufacturers to stay back in competition. The India's share of global trade might have marginally improved with little scope for economic revival very soon when trade from India can become competitive. The global rich and poor divide during the current economic slow down and poor revival does not through enough to give boost to India's Make in India programe. The skills required to stay competitive demands for the global change in the manner we produce the things, the labour intensive industries shows slow progress, with machine based productions gains competitive edge. The industrial and manufacturing base needs an improvement in the country side and rural India to raise the demands of the consumable goods. 

The entrepreneur developments and poor funding disbursal's from the key banks does not make the change as desired by the 'Modi Sarkar'.  The recent drubbing in state elections, and not being able to perform the legislative functions at the centre frustrates the ministries. The BJP ruled states even do not perform to expectation and shows the poor political upmanship to steer the economy forward. The hope for change when millions of Indians wants to join reflects in the lack of infrastructure investments in rural India, the investors looking for the space in the ever growing cities, mostly metropolitan cities. 

Corporate to cooperate with Governments to meet Development Targets?

Recently the Vibrant Gujarat 2015, concluded in Gandhinagar and host of CEO and top management of corporate world descended to support the agenda of Mr. Modi, as PM of India. The event hosted by Gujarat Government saw a mix of Modi and current CM Mrs. Patel. A careful integration of Global, national and regional development hopes were laid with most of the government departments pursued the corporate world to invest in their activities. The responsibilities of the government is now extended to the CEOs to help them in making infrastructure ready for massive investment in later stages. Of course promises made in most of the sectors as usual by national investors worth lakhs of crores, figures ranging from 2 lakh to 20 lakh crores. Wide investment in the state economies shows the advancement made by the state in pursuing the corporate s. Though the direct benefits are yet to be seen in the perspective of people since hardly quarter of the investments promised in earlier events has been materialized.

The investors were keen to be partner with the departments and state officials were quick enough to take promises of the investments. No body knows the serious viability and realization capacity of these deals. But the image of the state shows improvement in eyes of investors. The foreign delegates were happy but tizzy about actual realization. With slow world economy the monies required for the investment is hard to come by in the near future. The promised land of 'Smart' cities in Dholera and GIFT city could not see much more energy from investors. The land deals half completed in some cases are hard to realize due to slow growth in the international and national economies.

The bullish national approach to the economy is due to commitment of the ruling party are centre and state. The harsh development reality with the newly formed NITI Ayog (in lieu of planning commission) must face to keep the corporate and finance department happy. The task of winning the hearts of million citizens comes from showcase of implementing the schemes. The half baked approach of the ideas in Land Acquisition, Safai and development planning little serious change in government thinking. The facilitation of the investors is great and so was the promises, when we are going to see the real investors from distant land is hard to get. The stake of traditional partners like Japan, US, Australia over the Denmark, Finland, UK, South Africa is high due to long term commitments, but very cautious in approaching the Indian market. The system is ready to welcome them but lacks the down right commitment towards its own people.

India being the world market cannot expect export to the world till we find market for ourselves. We may not find export improving unless the corporate giants enter India on their own term to exploit the resources. After all they must promise profits for their investors. Keen to raise the human resources India still aspires to become largest 'Coolie' supplying nation to serve the multi national corporate. Despite trying to raise the bar for improving innovation and competitiveness India as a nation made to believe all we can do is to supply human labour in addition to get exploited of our resources. The pain to deal with the corporate is to facilitate them with land, capital and labour and allow them to take profits. When Indian systems would get benefited to invest further in social sector depends still on the tax paid by the resident citizens.

The PPP model adopted to give the infrastructure projects to corporate also enlists the possibilities of linking a system of paying tax money to corporate funds. The pity Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) unless sees light of day there is little chance of return on the social investment government would make in future. The viability of the policy framework depends on the markets, when the planned economies is rejected by the new governments. The new directions adopted provides little scope of the focus to investments in backward areas unless supports the investment by the corporate. The state governments must be ready to provide for the land, power and labour to the corporate guests in order to seek handful employment to its citizens.

The quick clearances of the projects, and easily twisted approach to resource management would evolve the exploitation more planned to extract the resources at minimum price and maximum benefits to the investors. The citizens must pay for the cost incurred to the governments which than can be shared with the corporate entity with the sound hope to have return on the investments. Not all remains hopeless in the dawn of new market and investment led government philosophy, with 'Make in India' campaign and realization of the social dreams. The easy arrangement with the World Banks (WB) for the loans which cities would need would further tangle and pledge the future Indian institutional capital to the corporate.

The images of the earlier, 'Bombay Plan' when eager investors lined up to partner with governments, though government decided to go public by setting large public sector undertaking. This time the governments is making large enterprise which is owned by the public to partner with corporate to justify the development targets. Corporate must participate with the governments to meet the development targets. Like most of the funds in social sector must now be routed through the expert corporate entity, the operations and management of the enterprise must also facilitate the improvement in the delivery and quality targets.

The nation must be sleeping is they do not react into the corporate take over of the public systems citing lack of public funds and their inability to manage. The market based economy needs to be most regulated and guided than the socialist economies. The wheel may turn back since the motive of profits must not be for the public benefits, and entirely least cost. The community till than must be diligent customers and good employee in order to allow the corporate to function and cooperate with the government to meet the development targets.  

Batting for Investment: Smart City and Make in India

The world might have moved on after sudden demise of market economy in Europe and US, and slow improvement shows a teething problem due to market over actions. The imbalance in the trade does not allow the Indian traders to open their business abroad. The protective layers to security provided by the european government to their industries is immense. They help them to establish anywhere in the world provided there is surity of good and cheper production and low carbon footprints. The burden which the American and European cities laid on themselves due to exposure to manufacturing the products that are sold in Indian and Chinese markets is immense. The companies presence in India over the period has increased, more and more large traders wants to open their enterprise in India, and surely they would like to sell products manufactured in India, like IKEA or WALLMART, they can be sure of imports as the basis of investment in trading. They are better off if their suppliers can open manufacturing centres in India.

They are set to establish the manufacturing, but as we all know till recently its difficult to open Indian small and medium scale manufacturing of goods. The ease of investment in these daily consumables would allow them to bring technology and capital to harness the cheap labour and market. The potential markets does not allow them to move away in order to survive in consumer driven markets. The cities which are also termed as SMART which are likely to have more areas with like minded consumers and class which can consume at least half of the products readily is prepared to welcome.

We would surely have cities within A CITY. The new consumer landscape would provide opportunities to manufacture and market the brands which are premium as well as bulk in nature to induce consumer markets. The in competitive home products would be left to deal with rest of India, mostly which would be beyond projected 100 smart cities. The 'Make in India' essentially been driven by market turns out to be good investment destinations, the companies who needs to be competitive would survive but the majority communities where trade and commerce would fall.

The youth seeking employment would be trained to service the new FDI (misnomer changed to 'First Develop India') seeks wider acceptance or they would seek investment in the communities which are outcome of new urbanism, mostly emerging out of sub-urbia (Indian version-satellite towns). The cities in India is large in numbers with more than 90 million plus cities and even if the quarter of the population is served and rest utilized to produce products which needs to be sold back to them would generate revenue for manufactures in coming times.

The immense potential of human labour is to be directed by the state actions for providing labourers which are cheap and unprotected through state, would be a boon to investors looking for Make in India products. The ease of business is good till the conditionals are favourable for the Foreign Direct Investment. Forget about trade balance its win win for FDI, for us to stake the claim to be largest coolie population in the world.