In a rare compliment for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi Monday praised the premier for bringing in the ‘good idea’ of ‘Make in India’. In the same breath, he termed it ‘a damp squib’.
On Prime Minister Modi’s ‘Make in India’ initiative, Gandhi stated that while he considered it a good idea though, the results have not been encouraging as India’s manufacturing share fell to the lowest in 60 years. The Rae Bareli member lambasted the NDA government for allowing the manufacturing to decline from 15.3 per cent of the GDP in 2014 to 12.6 per cent.
Speaking in the Lok Sabha during the Motion of Thanks on the President’s Address, the Congress leader said, “The prime minister proposed the ‘Make in India’ programme, I think it was a good idea… The result is right in front of you, manufacturing fell from 15.3 per cent of GDP in 2014 to 12.6 per cent of GDP today, which is the lowest share of manufacturing in 60 years. I am not blaming the prime minister, it would not be fair to say that he did not try. I could say that the prime minister tried but failed….”
”I am not blaming the prime minister, it would be wrong to say that he didn’t try. I could say that he tried but failed,” he added.
Referring to the unemployment issue in the country, Gandhi said India, as a nation, has collectively failed to address joblessness. “Both the UPA and the NDA have not been able to offer a solution to the youth over joblessness,” he said.
Calling unemployment a social problem, linking it to social unrest, he said the increasing number of people in jail, the rising amount of money being spent on police forces and internal security reflected the rising social tension in the country.
Addressing the policymakers, Gandhi said the country needs to better organise its production. “All governments since 1990 have done well in organising consumption or services but production or manufacturing has lagged,” he pointed out.
The Congress leader said the four technologies driving the entire revolution are – electric motor, batteries, optics and artificial intelligence.
“AI on its own is nothing without data. And when we look at data today, it is very clear that the production data used to make mobile phones or cars is owned by China and the consumption data is owned by the US,” he said, calling for an introspection to ascertain what data is going to drive its AI revolution.
”The answer is nothing, India does not have any form of data,” he said, calling for educating children about the four revolutionary technologies and building a production network to get access to production data.
”China has at least a 10 years lead on India over the use of these technologies and we need to start building capabilities in these areas,” he said.