‘Make in India’, has always been the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision and mission. And, he has always stressed on that we need to buy local products and spread the word to others.
This has of course started a debate on what is actually local, are big MNCs established in India, hiring locals and manufacturing here be termed local? Or we are talking about solely Indian brands?
We at MediaNews4u have spoken to people from various sectors, startups and brand consultants to understand as to what how they have interpreted the term ‘Be Vocal for Local’.
Today we speak to Ajay Pratap Singh, Head Marketing and Partnerships, Sportskeeda, a sports news website that was founded in 2009. Majority stake in the website was acquired by gaming firm Nazara Technologies in 2019. The Sportskeeda website has news, features, commentary and videos on sports like football, cricket, hockey, tennis, basketball and kabaddi.
How do you interpret the term ‘be vocal for local’?
Actually, when I read “Be Vocal for Local”, I see two sentences here,
“Be for Local” and “Vocal for Local”. Well to me, this means, not only to buy local products but also to promote them.
However, if I remember correctly, in 2014, BJP started the campaign “Make In India”, i.e. asking companies, foreign or Indian to produce in India. Now, with this vocal for local, the government has added one more layer of promoting the change.
I was reading an online survey which interviewed approx. 16k people on what they look for while shopping online. Only 33% of people actually said that they look at the country of origin. However, I feel with Covid-19 pandemic, loss of work, and ban on Chinese apps, this initiative will get a natural boost, which might be good for an economy like India.
The difference between Local & Swadeshi?
This is a tough question 🙂 I see Local as produced in India and Swadeshi as produced by an Indian company in India. However, these terms can be used interchangeably as we often say that this is a local product and not imported. Hence, there is not much difference between them.
How will companies which may be global but have been in India, produce here and employ locals will consumers now stop buying these products?
I do not see this happening very soon. We will have to understand that if foreign companies set up their production units in India, it is actually giving a lot of employment to India. On the other hand, these companies will still continue to make money from India and use it globally.
However, I feel that there shall be a considerable drop in imported products but global companies producing products in India will continue to see demand for their products. Although, if there is a product that is swadeshi and matches the standards of a local or global product then in that case we might see a drift in sales towards the swadeshi product.
Are you seeing a spurt in buying of ‘Swadeshi’ brands?
Well, I do not have any data here, however, on a personal front, whenever my wife or I buy products we actually look for the country of origin. If it is not Indian, we definitely look for alternatives
