India's Global Manufacturing Hub Dream Too Audacious, Says Narayana Murthy
'India is far away from becoming a hub and all of that. These are all big words we should not use,' Murthy said.
India's dream of becoming a global manufacturing hub is "too audacious" mainly due to the bottlenecks in government functioning and pessimism among labourers, according to Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy.
China has already become the factory of the world as they are disciplined, Murthy said recently at the Electronics City Industries Association's Tech Summit 2024 in Bengaluru. "They have national pride, they work and don't argue like we do."
As a result of that, China has a gross domestic product of six times that of India and therefore, it is "too audacious to say we will become a manufacturing hub", he said. "India is far away from becoming a hub and all of that. These are all big words we should not use."
Murthy also underscored that the dream was very difficult to realise because of the way the governments function in the country.
Unfortunately, the response time, transparency, accountability, speed and excellence in public governance systems in India still has to improve. It will improve but will take time.Narayana Murthy
The growth of manufacturing will take time unless there is a mechanism to reduce this barrier for the benefit of the government and industry, according to Murthy. "It will not grow at the same level as those industries, which depend upon outside India. My belief is the government is working on it and I hope they will remove most of the bottlenecks."
Earlier, the tech giant's co-founder courted controversy when he wanted India's youth to put in 70 hours of work a week to lift productivity levels from among the lowest in the world.
"Unless we improve our work productivity, unless we reduce corruption in the government… unless we reduce the delays in bureaucratic decision-making, we will not be able to compete with those countries that have made tremendous progress," he said earlier.
