The visionary ‘Make in India’ programme of the Modi government, is motivating country men to focus on  manufacturing for domestic consumption and global export, making most of the abundance of skilled and unskilled manpower, a large pool of land resorces including minerals, renewable energy, water and the government support ,to take the GDP to double digit. 

By Sanjiv Kathuria, Founder & CEO Torbit Realty

In the early 80’s we witnessed information technology revolution. Realizing the  need for  skilled manpower in the field of  computer software and  hardware , a large number of  private colleges across the length & breadth of the country together with government institutions, started producing skilled  workers. This skilled manpower was  quickly picked up by international companies led by America ,either directly or through large Indian IT companies which saw this as a huge opportunity to export skilled IT professionals to all parts of the world.

Following this, we saw the emergence of dotcom era . Coding became the most sought-after skill & coders were handpicked at lucrative salaries.The IT revolution has rewarded not only people employed in IT companies but also helped boost the economy of India. Indirectly, Indian IT professionals from across the world , repatriated billions of dollars back home  which flowed into the Indian economy. India’s real estate sector has been a major beneficiary . .

This  has been an ongoing phenomenon with bigger numbers , fuelling  the growth of mid and large size IT companies in India which employ lacs of young IT skilled people. These IT professionals  drawing handsome salaries and having large disposable income, were instrumental in boosting consumption by buying   apartments, cars  and other consumables.

However, today alarm bells are ringing.  AI is invading fast  as a dinosaur to eat away  jobs of coders, who over the last many years are stuck with their knowledge and not updating it to  make the existing IT infrastructure efficient and relevant as per the need in current times. Consequently, We have been seeing mass layoffs in the IT companies, be it Microsoft, Google, Oracle or even TCS.

The Indian government  was smart enough to rise to the occasion -building physical infrastructure viz roads, airports, ports, metro, bridges as also the digital infrastructure through Unified Digital Interface (UPI) instant  payment system ,  besides boosting Gati Shakti Programme and logistics  to support manufacturing industry. The media reports in the last few quarters have been pointing out government’s efforts in setting up large scale industrial hubs  in all major startes of Gujarat , Uttar Pradesh, Telangana , Andhra Pradesh , Tamil Nadu etc through initiatives like Dholera , a planned greenfield industrial  and smart city and Yamuna Industrial Development Authority .

We are already manufacturing record numbers of  I phones in India and have also started manufacturing semiconductor chips. The automobile industry is poised for a humongous growth in India, providing  large scale manpower employment . So is the case with  aerospace and  pharmaceutical sector,  supporting a  large scale MSME  industrial units mushrooming in Uttar Pradesh .As new industrial areas are coming up in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities , we are going to see a massive manufacturing activity with a large blue collared workforce. 

 In the fast-evolving real estate landscape , the real estate developers need to focus on  these new industrial  hubs and  plan large scale budget housing, high street retail and other social requirements like schools and hospitals for the blue-collared workers.Housing requirements have to be met keeping in mind the salary of large blue collared work force. There is a big requirement for  small 60 mtr. / 100 mtr. / 125 Mtr units in 2B/R , two and a half B/R and 3 B/R with a price range of INR 40-50 lakhs to less than INR 1 crore for mass  housing . There is an urgent need for the real estate developers to align their thoughts with the ‘Make in India’ vision of the government , to make most of the opportunity.