Young Indian Engineers Turn to Manufacturing

When Kislay Pankaj graduated from one of the Indian Institutes of Technology in 2013, he thought about getting a master’s in engineering in the U.S. His parents urged him to join the Indian Administrative Service and eventually become a top civil servant. Instead, Pankaj ignored both well-worn paths to success, turned down an offer from an Internet company, and took a job at a manufacturing startup.

Indian companies make steel, autos, and pharmaceuticals, but the country remains weak in manufacturing. From 1986 to 2013 manufacturing barely advanced from almost 16 percent of gross domestic product to 17.3 percent, according to World Bank figures. In China, manufacturing is 42.6 percent of GDP: The Indian government has announced a target of 25 percent. A 2006 report called for a national strategy, noting that manufacturing was “stagnating” largely because of “the inability of the country to build and maintain competitiveness.”