Look Within to Make Do Without

Context: The inability to build robust capacities in critical areas of health, economy, and national se?cu?rity over the past few decades has made In?dia vul?ner?a?ble at many lev?els.

Severity of India’s capacity constraints: highlighted during the pandemic.

• Overstrained Healthcare: 

• There is one qual?i?fied al?lo?pathic doctor for 10,926 In?di?ans (National Health Profile, 2019).
• No area-specific solutions: Restricting the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) to just 5% based on the behavior of Covid-19 in India did not resolve the capacity crisis in Mumbai.
• Nervous implementation of successive lockdowns: due to fear of running out of capacity and being unable to ramp up the capacity further.

• Ballooning economic crisis: 

• Not much to fall back on: due to less resources and increased risk to the leadership.

• National Security challenge: 

• Beijing’s dominance: Ladakh stand-off came as a reminder, hat India lives next to dangerous neighbors.
• Delayed capacity building: India’s efforts in the form of road construction are too delayed and will face resistance as opposed to Chinese infrastructure in the region.

Opportunities for India: 

• Rapid capacity building: as demonstrated by GoI’s improvisations in creating capacities to make Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and ensuring the availability of RT-PCR testing kits.
• Diversification of supply chains: US-China political tussle has provided opportunities for India to ramp up building capabilities of local manufacturers in terms of scale and skills

Way Forward:

• Build, Build, and Build: the adversaries have grown stronger and are looking to exploit India’s vulnerabilities due to capacity constraints.
• Skill, Scale, and Speed: Follow PM Modi’s mantra in getting ‘New India’ off the blocks.