Are Indian project promoters lacking in confidence

It is now well known that pace of capacity creation in Indian industries is steadily declining, which seem to have now reached alarming level . This is more than evident from the fact that import level of several products have gone up substantially during the last few years.

The project promoters, start up entrepreneurs and economists have often blamed the government policies and global scenario for the problems faced by the Indian industry, However, careful study and analysis of ground realities would make it amply clear that the problems have not been caused by Government of India alone, which has initiated several pro active measures in recent years after extensive interaction and discussion with the industry representatives.

It is true that most of the Indian start up entrepreneurs do not have investment capability to set up large projects of globally competitive capacity. But, why look at such projects, when there are so many opportunities in projects of medium and small size, which can be readily seen by keeping the eyes and ears open.

Let us take the example of chemical industry

There are several commodity and speciality chemicals that do not require large investment and have steadily growing demand, which are being considerably imported at present .

Many of such projects can be taken up by start up entrepreneurs. Really, there is no constraint in setting up such speciality chemical projects from the point of view of their relevance to the national demand and growth in demand.

The problem is that Indian chemical industry is unable to set up several commodity and speciality chemical projects due to lack of technology and technical know how and with the international companies unwilling to provide technology for such commodity and speciality chemical projects at affordable price for the Indian chemical units.

In such circumstances, the only option for Indian chemical industry is to develop technologies for such projects by indigenous efforts, instead of looking for technology from abroad, which is being done from even small countries like Korea, Taiwan, Israel.

Lack of attention to the research and development needs and inability to achieve great results in research and innovation is the basic problem faced by the Indian chemical industry at present.

Why blame Government of India for this scenario ? Ministers and bureaucrats can provide policies and fund support for research and development work. The research and development work has to be necessarily carried out only by the industry players.

Indian start up entrepreneurs / project promoters have to look inward for all their problems and there is no need to look for scapegoat elsewhere.

It is obvious, that the confidence level of Indian start up entrepreneurs/ project promoters are low at present. Such confidence level is most important to forge ahead because the confidence can be self reinforcing. Unless the entrepreneurs build their confidence level which has to be accompanied by pride in developing domestic technology, the basic issue facing the Indian project promoters will remain unsolved.

N.S.Venkataraman
Director
Nandini consultancy Centre
www.nandinichemical.com more