ReutersThe country historically has a talent pool that is based on analog technology and there is an immediate need to convert the existing talent pool to digital.

The country’s manufacturing sector will never grow if India does not possess its own intellectual property rights and remains a slave manufacturing nation for other countries, Bharat Forge Chairman and Managing Director Baba Kalyani said on Wednesday.

Technology-enabled innovation is a must to drive the country’s manufacturing sector, Kalyani said at the CII business summit.

“What I mean by technology-driven innovation is ..all Indian companies must own the IPR, the intellectual property right of whatever they are making,” he said.

“If India doesn’t own its own IPR and just remains as a slave manufacturing nation for other countries, we are never going to grow in manufacturing,” he said.

The country historically has a talent pool that is based on analog technology and there is an immediate need to convert the existing talent pool to digital.

“That’s easily said but not easily done because you have labour regulations, labour laws all kinds of things that will hinder this process,” he explained.

The industry and the government need to modernise and get the labour laws oriented toward getting the workforce trained to digital, the CMD said.

“You cannot have a workforce that comes out of existing ITIs and doing digital that is just not possible. That is the biggest challenge that we have got,” he said.

Stating that the country has the biggest opportunity in terms of talent, Kalyani said that a big problem outside India is the non-availability of labour and in the next few years the Indian companies will send a lot of people to run factories in nations like Germany and the United States.

“It is very difficult to find trained manpower even in Germany, even in the United States and even in other parts of Europe…You will see a lot of reversal that we have seen from before,” he explained.

Kalyani also stressed that ease of doing business is also required at the state level.