Make India a manufacturing hub: Murthy

Having carved a niche for itself as a global outsourcing hub for services, India should now look at becoming the world's preferred manufacturing destination, Infosys chief mentor N R Narayana Murthy said on Thursday.

Making India a outsourcing and offshoring manufacturing destination in a big way would create millions of jobs in rural areas, he said at an information and communication technology conference in Bangalore.

Murthy said in India, "when one talks about outsourcing and offshoring, one only thinks in terms of software. "Frankly, I believe we have to go beyond that and include manufacturing in that definition as China has done," he said.

He said 26 per cent of the GDP of India is produced by a whopping 65 per cent of the people in rural areas by way of agriculture. "It means...you are looking at $320 (per person per capita GDP) for 65 per cent of people. What it means is less than a dollar a day."

"If we have to make life better for these (rural) people and give them reasonable standards of living, disposable incomes, healthcare and nutrition and education, I believe we have to look at low-tech manufacturing to start with and then high-tech manufacturing in a big way just as China has done because most of these people are semi-literate or educated at a very basic level," Murthy said.

He also said "If we have to succeed in bringing the power of low-tech and medium-tech manufacturing to create millions of jobs for these people, then we have to enhance our supply chains."