India enterprises have the ability to undertake frugal engineering and must excel, innovate and design to drive its economic growth by 9-10 per cent for the next three decades to create employment driven growth, said Amitabh Kant, secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India.

He was speaking at the 7th VLFM Learning Convention (Visionary Leaders for Manufacturing) programme held under the auspices of Champions of Societal Manufacturing organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Calling the apex technology and management institutes in the country to document their innovations by patenting them, Kant said that 22 per cent of the patents filed from India are done by Indian companies while 78 per cent were done by Multinational companies operating from India.

Sharing instances of innovation by global conglomerates operating in India, Kant said, "Renault has designed a car for the global market from Chennai and General Motors is now trying to do the same in Talegaon. Dymler in Chennai is making trucks not for Indian markets but for global markets. What the world is realising is that India has ability to do frugal engineering."

So far India had held back itself by regulatory controls, but we are now overcoming. We have so far grown on the back of services sector that contributed 60 per cent of the GDP.

"Over the last 60 years, we have made India a difficult place to do business. We have simply created an economy of controls," Kant said.

But, jobs cannot be created in services, as much as they can be through manufacturing. Hence, there are huge perils of non industrialisation for population of the size of India and it will have serious consequences, if manufacturing is not initiated, Kant said.

Speaking at the ceremony, Prof Shoji Shiba, Chief Advisor , Champions for Societal Manufacturing, said that the biggest obstacle for future transformation is mindset change.

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