Industrialisation for Employment and Growth in India Lessons from Small Firm Clusters and Beyond

"India initiated liberal economic reforms in 1991 to transform a slow-growing, large, inward-oriented, state-led economy into an open, market-led, export-oriented industrialising economy, seeking to emulate the East Asian success story. After nearly three decades, however, the outcomes are different. Though economic growth has accelerated, industrialisation has suffered from the manufacturing sector's share in GDP stagnating, and labour intensive sectors failing to improve their share in India's exports. With rising industrial imports, there is growing apprehension of India becoming prematurely de-industrialised. In response, the government launched the Make in India initiative in 2015 aimed at raising the manufacturing sector's share in GDP to 25 per cent, and to create an additional 100 million jobs by 2022. Though official estimates show an optimistic image of small scale industry's contribution to industrial output and employment, they do not explain why India failed to boost labour-intensive industrial production as expected of the reforms. Why did they fail to keep the domestic market, let alone expand exports? Given the employment potential of small industry, what would it take to meet the ambitious policy goals of the Make in India initiative? This book attempts to address these questions. It looks at a series of case studies of the small industry to obtain an in-depth understanding of specific industries, locations and clusters to be able to draw meaningful conclusions. It brings together scholars with intimate knowledge and experience of the industries and locations who explore the modern labour-intensive industries, ranging from the sports goods industry and knitwear clusters to foundries and ceramic tile clusters. It seeks to offer rich insights into the current state of the small industry in India that is often overlooked in official statistics and nation-wide surveys. The book also explores the implications of growing automation on manufacturing employment"--