Atmanirbhar campaign in sync with globalisation, PM tells MNC heads

Says India to soon supply two vaccines to the world, many more will come, going forward

Prime minister Narendra Modi on Thursday invited global companies to take advantage of policy reforms initiated by his government in the areas of manufacturing, infrastructure, digital space and healthcare. He told more than 400 top industry leaders that two vaccines produced by India will soon be available to the world and many more vaccines will come from India in the coming time. 

Interacting with representatives of multinational corporations such as IBM, MasterCard, ABB, Siemens at Davos Agenda of the World Economic Forum virtually, Modi tried to bring home the point that the Atmanirbhar campaign by India will strengthen globalisation. 

"Our Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan is committed towards global good and global supply chain. India has the capacity, capability and reliability to strengthen the global supply chain," he said.

 

On vaccine plans, he said the country now has two made-in-India vaccines. "These will soon be available to the world. India's bit for self reliance will strengthen a new era of globalisation. The World Economic Forum will be relieved to know that in the time to come many more vaccines will come from India," he said. 

Modi said India was among the few nations that managed to save the most lives during the pandemic. This comes a week after India started a mass inoculation drive.

He said India defied doomsayers who had predicted that India will be the worst Covid affected country in the world.

"They said that we will face 2 million deaths, but nothing like that happened. We are among the nations that have managed to save the most number of lives and we are on our way to significantly reduce the number of active cases," he said. 

He said the country not only produced kits to fight Covid-19 but also helped other countries, adding that it had started the world's largest coronavirus vaccination programme and its speed can be imagined from the fact that over 2.3 million health workers have been vaccinated in just 12 days.

"In the next few months, we would complete our target of vaccinating 300 million old people and people with co-morbidities, he said. "When the world had shut its airspace, we brought back lakhs of our citizens back to India." 

"Also, When airspace was closed in many countries, India took more than 100,000 citizens to their countries and delivered essential medicines to more than 150 countries," he said. 

Modi informed the world business leaders that the programme to give every Indian a unique health card is in the works. 

He said the government did not shy of carrying out economic reforms even in the difficult period of Covid. The reforms, including decriminalising many provisions of the companies Act, reducing corporate taxes, easing labour rules, have resulted in 13 per cent increase in the foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2020 despite Covid, he said. 

Speaking on the 'Fourth Industrial Revolution - using technology for the good of humanity', the prime minister said,"Atmanirbhar campaign will receive support from industry 4.0. In the last 6 years, India's digital drive has become a subject of interest even for experts," he said. 

Pointing out that industry 4.0 is based on four tools -- connectivity, automation, artificial intelligence and real time data, the prime minister said India has all the four. 

To buttress his point, he said Rs 4 trillion worth of transactions were made through the UPI systems in December alone. "Many countries are looking to replicate the UPI networks. During covid, Rs 1.8 trillion were transferred to bank accounts of beneficiaries directly," he said. 

He also invited companies to invest in infrastructure, saying it is estimated that the infrastructure needs of the country would be around $4.5 trillion by 2040. "I believe that the government and industry would have to achieve this goal in unison. The government is continuously working towards providing a stable environment and all help," he said. 

 

Pointing out that infrastructure is one of the foremost priorities of his government in the last 6 years, he said India has added 36GW to production capacity, roads and rail networks are being augmented. 

"Projects worth $1.5 trillion will be implemented in the next five years. A logistics policy has also been contemplated. Reforms are an ongoing exercise, to improve competitiveness," Modi said. 

He asked MNCs to take advantage of the production-linked scheme which aimed at setting up manufacturing and export hubs in India. 

Talking about growth and development of the MSMEs, Modi said, "Digital lending platforms can help MSMEs get access to credit. Our effort is that MSMEs should benefit from AI. Through the government e-Marketplace (GeM) 450,000 MSMES have joined in government procurement online."

To a question on smart cities and urban India, Modi said the two-third of the country's economic output comes from cities. "We have a commitment to ease of living, ease of doing business, and climate-sensitive development. We are working to converge the physical and digital worlds in our cities. By 2025 India will have 25 cities with metro services, India is progressing fast on electric mobility as well," he said.