Glitzy ads on 'Make in India' cannot sugarcoat its colossal failures: Congress

New Delhi: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday alleged that 10 years of the Narendra Modi government's Make in India "stunt" has put a break on India's manufacturing and said that glitzy ads cannot sugarcoat its "colossal failures." Kharge said that contrary to the BJP's high decibel propaganda, India's manufacturing sector has become de-industralised.

"10 years of Modi Govt's Make in India Stunt has put Break in India’s Manufacturing! 10 years ago, PM Narendra Modi crafted the slogan of 'Make in India' and claimed to build Aatmnirbhar Bharat. Contrary to BJP's high decibel propaganda, India's manufacturing sector has got de-industralised due to Modi government's FLOP policy initiatives," he said in a post on X.

Kharge listed five "stark facts" which he claimed made India miss the bus on manufacturing.

"The average growth rate of the manufacturing sector between 2014-15 and 2023-24 is just 3.1 per cent (BJP-NDA) whereas between 2004-05 and 2013-14, the average growth rate was 7.85 per cent (Congress-UPA). The number of employees in factories grew at 6.2 per cent annually during the Congress-UPA regime. This growth fell spectacularly to just 2.8 per cent under the Modi government," the Congress chief said.

Between 2011-12 and 2022, India's manufacturing sector saw minimal growth in employment, increasing from 6 crore to merely 6.3 crore workers, he said.

"This modest addition of 3 lakh jobs annually is insufficient, considering 1.5 crore youth enter the workforce every year," he said.

Kharge said that according to NSO, the share of employment in manufacturing accounted for 12.6 per cent of all workers in 2011-12.

This declined to 10.9 per cent in 2020-21, before recovering 11.6 per cent in 2021-22, he said.

Kharge said that the share of manufacturing in India’s GDP has hit "an all time low" of 12.83 per cent in 2023, which under the UPA in 2013 was 15.25 per cent.

"PLI schemes have miserably failed in several sectors. Sectors such as high-efficiency solar PV modules, advance chemistry cell (ACC) batteries, textile products, speciality steel, white goods and medical devices have failed to yield the claimed results," Kharge said.

He claimed that most Production-Linked Incentive, or PLI, schemes have garnered "lukewarm and tepid" response from the industry and experts have criticised the schemes for their poor design, lack of clarity and no real value addition.

"Year after year, the Modi government has sold stakes of even profit making PSUs to Modi ji's crony friends, thereby breaking the backbone of our Public sector. Instead of filling vacant government jobs, the Modi government has eliminated 5.1 lakh posts!" he said.

Casual and contract recruitment in PSU's has increased by a whopping 91 per cent, and SC, ST, and OBC posts have decreased by 1.3 lakh, he said.

"Overall there are 40 per cent contractual employees in Indian factories (2021-22), this was just 5 per cent (2013-14) during Congress-UPA," he said.

"With rampant joblessness, plunging exports and extinguishing savings, Modi Govt's glitzy ads on 'Make in India' cannot sugarcoat its colossal failures!" Kharge said.