HCL co-founder Ajai Chowdhry advocates for India becoming "product nation"

New Delhi [India], October 29 : Author Ajai Chowdhry, Co-founder of Hindustan Computers Limited, on Wednesday advocated that India progress towards becoming a "product nation" rather than relying on services, focusing on design and manufacturing.
"Our 60% of our economy is based on services, which is very, very dangerous. We should now move towards being a product nation in everything that we do, whether it's semiconductors, whether it's drones, whether it's EVs, whether it's whatever product you can think of, we must become a product nation," Chowdhry said in an interview with ANI.
"We have great design capability. We don't have manufacturing capability. Manufacturing for electronics has been established in the last few years. Semiconductor manufacturing, we are still learning," he added.
What's going to happen with all those engineers who are losing their jobs? Do we have the ability to absorb it? Does our industry have the ability to absorb those job losses now?
When asked about engineers losing jobs due to layoffs, Chowdhry argued that the Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Fund, worth Rs 1 lakh crore, issued by the centre, could help absorb engineers' jobs, since government money is penetrating the private sector for the first time.
"We need to move towards being a product nation. And we need to be a product nation in every way we can. We were a think tank, and we went to the government and said, 'move towards being a product nation'. The government listened, and the good news is that Modi sanctioned 1 lakh crore for 50 years, interest-free, as a research and development fund. The RDI fund is now under implementation. I think this is where these engineers can be absorbed, because this kind of money has never been invested in the private sector before. For the first time in the history of the country, we are having government money going into private," he added.
Chowdhry further stated that the right to repair must be implemented as policy, given that India is the second-largest e-waste producer in the world.
"Consumer affairs ministry came up with the whole idea that we must follow repair in India as a policy. Right to repair as a policy. Europe and America have all created the right to repair. We haven't. Why? We were very good at Jugaad. We used to take our clothes from our younger brother. That culture is Indian. Why have we adopted the global culture? It's a sad state of affairs. We should go into making repair happen in this country," Chowdhry said.
"When the consumer affairs ministry came up with this whole idea of right to repair, every global company opposed it. As a result, they've stopped. It's a very sad state of affairs," he added.