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PM Modi's 'Make In India' Agenda Looks Like UPA's 2011 Manufacturing Policy

PM Modi's 'Make In India' Agenda Looks Like UPA's 2011 Manufacturing Policy
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks during the inaugural ceremony of 'Make in India' week in Mumbai, India, Saturday, Feb. 13, 2016. âMake in Indiaâ is an initiative launched by the Modi last year to encourage international companies to manufacture their goods in India. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)
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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks during the inaugural ceremony of 'Make in India' week in Mumbai, India, Saturday, Feb. 13, 2016. âMake in Indiaâ is an initiative launched by the Modi last year to encourage international companies to manufacture their goods in India. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)

During his speech on Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tried to woo global investors by highlighting India’s growth story and promising policy reforms to make business easier, including a transparent tax regime.

The PM was talking at an event to celebrate 'Make In India' week.

The ambitious “Make in India” program was launched in September 2014, pledging to lower barriers to doing business and promote foreign investment. Modi is hoping to transform Asia’s third-largest economy into a manufacturing powerhouse like China.

So, how does he plan to do it?

Well, there are several targets that he wants to meet. However, it seems, two years before he came up with this, someone else did--The UPA in its Manufacturing Policy.

On Saturday, as the PM was busy trying to woo the investors in Mumbai, a Twitter user quickly spotted that the agenda of 'Make in India' is strikingly similar to that of UPA's 2011 Manufacturing Policy.

So that's why Modi's #MakeInIndia agenda is so familiar; it's a cut-and-paste of the UPA's manufacturing policy. pic.twitter.com/0qIcZOuPf2

— Amitabh Dubey (@dubeyamitabh) February 13, 2016

So, we did a quick check and compared the two projects.

1. Share of manufacturing in GDP: Modi's project aims to increase the share of manufacturing in country’s Gross Domestic Product from 16% to 25% by 2022. The National Manufacturing policy which was drafted in October 2011, also aimed for the same target. It was the first sentence in the report.

2. Jobs: 'Make In India' aims to create 100 million additional jobs by 2022 in manufacturing sector. UPA's National Manufacturing policy listed this as its second target.

3. 'Creation of appropriate skill sets among rural migrants and the urban poor for inclusive growth,' is one of the 'achievable targets' of Make In India. Incidentally, the manufacturing policy also says a similar thing: "Creation of appropriate skill sets among the rural migrant and urban poor to make growth inclusive." Oh, it actually uses the same words also.

There are a couple of sentences that are in fact exactly the same.

If you are still in doubt, check the features of 'Make In India' here and the half a decade old Manufacturing policy here.

A case of old wine in new bottle?

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.