#radel electronics

If India is to match China in both technology and scale, many bottlenecks will have to be removed. The idea of ‘Make in India’ is not just about internal development, but also effectively countering threats from the outside. In terms of both geography and potential, India’s biggest competitor today is China.

Recently, a German manufacturer refused to manufacture in India because he wasn’t convinced of Indian ability to meet his quality standards. He compared a simple switch board that was fixed crooked at an Indian public office to a German one that was perfectly in place. A UK based designer working with Indian textiles recently refused to source his products locally from Indian weavers due to lack of quality.

Electronics City Industrial Township Authority has overcome many challenges, but there are still a few left. Historically, industrial estates have been set up in suburbs and areas distant from residential populations and, therefore, have always been governed by either a municipality or a village panchayat.

‘Make in India’ primarily focuses on manufacturing products in India. It is logical that this should include ‘Design in India’, ‘Innovate in India’, and ‘Support in India’. This therefore requires a holistic approach to not just managing HR, but creating HR right from schools, colleges and training institutions. Though this is a highly demanding task, there is no way we can avoid this. It is the only way that Make in India can succeed. Further, all these activities result in multiple areas of challenges as well as opportunities. The Governments (Central & State) too have their part to play in improving Industrial Relations and Labour laws, since manufacturing will certainly have to percolate to the smallest of MSMEs.

It was literally in disgust that G. Raj Narayan, founder and managing director of Radel Group, quit his job as an avionics engineer in the public sector to become an entrepreneur in electronics. That was way back in 1979. Three-and-a-half decades later, in 2015, Raj Narayan's company is now a very important supplier of test jigs and aerospace parts to Bengaluru-headquartered Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) that he had left after 10 years of work to pursue his passion.