Hello Mumbai Business Desk

 Guest Post by AMITA GOYAL – GLASBA FINANCIALSERVICES

Introduction:

For years, India stood at the global table more as a service contributor than a product creator. While we powered Silicon Valley’s tech dreams and staffed back-end hubs worldwide, the image of an “assembling nation” remained distant. Meanwhile, countries like Japan and Singapore were setting global benchmarks in innovation, exports, and economic agility.

Enter the Make in India initiative—a clarion call not just to manufacture within borders, but to manufacture identity, resilience, and financial strength. Launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, this movement wasn’t just about GDP numbers. It was a calculated shift in how India positioned itself in the world.

What’s the Real Strategy Behind ‘Make in India’?

The primary goal is clear: boost GDP by strengthening the manufacturing sector, which contributes ~17% to India’s GDP (as of FY 2024) and is expected to rise to 25% by 2025.

But the real strategy lies beneath the surface:

1. Diversifying Economic Dependence: India’s over-reliance on the service sector made it vulnerable to global shocks. Manufacturing builds long-term assets, not just service capacity.
2. Employment Generation: Manufacturing has a direct and cascading impact on jobs—skilled, semi-skilled, and unskilled—especially in Tier II and III cities.
3. Reducing Import Dependency: Be it electronics, defence, or heavy machinery, the initiative targets strategic autonomy, especially from economies like China.
4. Global Supply Chain Integration: Make in India wasn’t about going solo—it was about making India irresistible in the “China + 1” global sourcing model.

Global Lessons: Why Some Nations Excelled While Others Wobbled

🌟 Japan:

From the ashes of war, Japan rebuilt itself with a relentless focus on quality, lean manufacturing, and financial discipline. Even today, their manufacturing contributes nearly 21% to GDP, with a strong export ecosystem supported by long-term capital structures and industrial credit.

🌟 Singapore:

Despite limited land and population, Singapore leveraged policy clarity, technology adoption, and capital-market integration to become a global hub. It offers a blueprint on how regulation and finance work hand-in-hand.

⚠️ China:

While it rode the wave of low-cost manufacturing for decades, rising wages, trade war pressures, and post-COVID restructuring have exposed cracks in its dependency model. Debt-heavy SOEs and regulatory clampdowns have also hurt investor confidence.

⚠️ Southern Europe (Italy, Greece):

These economies suffered from debt overhang, low industrial productivity, and rigid labour policies, making them less adaptable in a fast-paced global economy. An over-reliance on tourism and services meant their industrial base remained sluggish.

Subtle Lesson: Economies that avoided the “couch potato trap”—i.e., over-consuming and under-producing—are the ones thriving today.

🟡 India’s Financial Backbone: MSMEs & Government-Led Funding

The unsung heroes of this revolution? India’s 63 million+ MSMEs, contributing nearly 30% to GDP, 49% of exports, and employing 110+ million people.

Here’s how the government is fuelling them:

Credit Infusion

• ₹5 lakh crore+ under the Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) post-COVID.
• PSU and private banks have aggressively ramped up unsecured business lending—backed by schemes like CGTMSE.
• The CGTMSE (Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises) policy ensures collateral-free credit for eligible MSMEs. The government has committed a total of ₹13,000 crore to strengthen this scheme between FY 2023–24 and FY 2027–28, with ₹9,000 crore already infused in April 2023. This expanded corpus is expected to unlock large-scale credit flow, particularly through the recently enhanced ₹10 crore guarantee limit introduced in Budget 2025.PLI Schemes
• Production-Linked Incentives across 14 sectors have committed over ₹1.97 lakh crore, encouraging MSMEs to become part of global value chains.

 Infrastructure & Policy Push

• Dedicated industrial corridors (e.g., Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor)

Labour law simplifications, digital tax systems, and Udyam Registration easing access to finance.

Where Finance Ties It All Together

At Glasba, we believe finance isn’t just funding—it’s fuel. The success of Make in India hinges not just on policy, but on how credit, capital, and compliance come together for enterprises.

Our role, as financial enablers, is to:

• Bridge MSMEs to capital—secured and unsecured
• Navigate policy-based funding routes
• Simplify complex banking structures for real-world manufacturing dreams

Closing Thought: A Make-In-India Mindset

India’s journey isn’t just about factories—it’s about financial sovereignty, employment dignity, and global competitiveness.
We’re not just making in India.
We’re making India—one MSME, one financial decision, one bold policy at a time.

But beyond numbers and targets, Make in India is a cultural shift.
It’s about replacing dependency with capability, imports with innovation, and hesitation with investment.
It’s about moving from being a nation that once celebrated foreign-made goods to one that now takes pride in the “Made in India” label—knowing that behind every product lies the sweat, skill, and sacrifice of our own.

For MSMEs, this isn’t just an opportunity—it’s a responsibility.
And for financial institutions and facilitators like Glasba, this is our moment to stand tall—not just as lenders, but as builders of India’s real economy.

The couch potato days are over.
This is the era of creators, contributors, and conscious capital.
This is India, manufacturing its destiny—with vision in its eyes and finance at its foundation.