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We can't build a single world-class city with functioning footpaths or a coherent master plan. I won't hold my breath on India catching up with China.
As many esteemed economists have pointed out, the much bigger problem is low productivity. I personally benefit from this. Small fabrication units and lathe units are where I manage to make my piecemeal equipment. It's a comfortable existence for the maker. You get paid per project or per batch. You want to saunter in at 10 am? Done. 4 tea breaks? Done. The larger company keeps a person, pension, PF and liability off their books.
This isn't fiction. My chap Gokul who just milled, drilled and shaped most of the bits for our lat-pull and dip stand (and everything else in the last two years) is a two person operation. He is the guy I described in the previous paragraph. And there are many more like him. I know of at least 7 of them within 6 kms of my house.
Gokul has no appetite for more than this. Not because he lacks ambition. He intuitively and by experience knows twelve men means twelve men's problems. Velu's fabrication unit down the road is short a welder right now over a family land dispute in Bihar. The floor is stretched. Add the drunks, the no-shows, the compliance files, the inspector. The marginal rupee from ten more men isn't worth it. He's not wrong. That's often the trade on offer.
And the output from these microfirms is good. I've seen parts from these places go to rather complicated defence projects and spacecraft. I couldn't believe what was being fabricated in a 160 sq ft un-air-conditioned room. The parts are excellent. The output per man-hour, and the ceiling on what can even be attempted, are not.
You can find 100 small lathes with 2-3 machinists working in each in a small neighbourhood in Madras. What we need, at a minimum, is 2-3 plants with 100 machinists working in each. Productivity in mom-and-pop factories and hole in the wall setups is doomed to remain low.
And this matters. If this ecosystem is incentivised, the Athers and Ultraviolettes of the world get much more competitive. More trained welders means frames get done faster. Hubs come out of the CNCs more briskly. They scale faster. We can have our two-wheeler BYDs. That Ather bike in the works? Out in 2027 not 2029.
If India is serious about competing in any shape or form on manufacturing and providing a milieu for those who can make bigger and better things, we need to start making it conducive for the Gokuls to work in factories with 4-5 apprentices working under them to pick up his trade. Machining shouldn't be less lucrative than delivering bananas for q-commerce. And I know machinists and welders delivering bananas. Nothing breaks my heart more.