It’s been over two decades since liberalisation, but till date, the manufacturing sector’s contribution to GDP has been stuck at roughly 15%. That’s a sad commentary considering that the country has close to 9-12 million fresh graduates joining the labour force annually. Several vision statements, white papers and blueprints have come and gone with no change on the ground. Not long ago, special economic zones were seen as the panacea for all ills plaguing the manufacturing sector. Barring some isolated instances, the whole plan ended up as a big flop. 

But don’t fret yet — the government isn’t giving up. Here is yet another grand plan: the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) “plans” to develop seven greenfield future cities in six states and integrate them with the Indian Railways’ dedicated freight corridor (which itself was envisaged six years ago to stem the loss of freight due to operational inefficiency). By 2017, the 1,483-km dedicated freight corridor is expected to transport goods from the north to the ports on the western coast within 12-13 hours, a task which currently takes 12-13 days. 

The DMIC is more ambitious than any other earlier government plan and had to be scaled down to match ground reality. Even the downsized project is now becoming a nightmare to execute, going by the pending issues that need to be sorted out, says associate editor Kandula Subramaniam. But for land prices shooting up in the regions from where the DMIC is to pass through, nothing much has taken off since 2007, when this project was envisaged. Read The road to nowhere

All ifs and buts aside, the DMIC project better take off. Because, unless world-class manufacturing hubs and greenfield industrial townships are created, it will be impossible to create the required number of jobs and reap the so-called demographic dividend. Not just that, even in the short- and medium-term, the success of this project will be an important trigger in reviving economic growth and boosting the confidence of private investors. Thomas Edison once remarked, “Vision without execution is hallucination.” Hopefully, he did not have our policymakers in mind.