Manufacturing Disco | How India has become an attractive manufacturing destination for global MNCs

India has become an attractive manufacturing destination for global multinational brands, said an expert panel comprising Bharat Forge's Baba Kalyani, Larsen & Toubro's (L&T) JD Patil and Panasonic India's Manish Sharma on Wednesday. India will be ahead of many countries due to its innovation, said Bharat Forge's Kalyani.

"India has no option but to focus on innovation and innovative manufacturing. We can't do manufacturing the old ways. We have to bring in digital technology in our manufacturing, we have to innovate new products, and we have to do things exactly what the Atmanirbhar Bharat philosophy says. And once you do that, then I think in the next 10-12 years, you will be ahead of most of these countries. India has the potential to get ahead of most of these countries, just in a way it's innovative capabilities. Today, we are innovating for OEMs around the world, we are not innovating for ourselves. If we just change that whole scenario and start innovating for ourselves, then I think the whole picture will be very different," he told CNBC-TV18.

On electric vehicles (EV) or the EV game, Kalyani said, "Most of the PLI schemes are focused towards the new technologies. I won't get a PLI if I am expanding my forging business, for example. If you are going to make components for electric vehicles, you want to make those kinds of things the PLI scheme is applicable. That's a good scheme because I think you can take better and bigger bets with that scheme, instead of taking the whole risk, head-on yourselves, because nobody knows how the EV game is going get played out. You heard in the US, the big auto OEMs are now pulling back on their EV investments because somehow the demand momentum is not as high as they thought."