After months of speculation on GDP numbers, the results have confirmed our worst fears: our economy is suffering from a serious malaise. (See Are we headed for the Hindu rate of growth?) Construction has contracted by 50.30 per cent (from Rs 2.62 trillion to Rs 1.30 trillion) as the sector worst hit during this quarter, contributing to the overall GDP contracting by 23.9 per cent from Rs 35.35 trillion in Q1 of 2019 to Rs 26.90 trillion in Q1 of 2020—incidentally, one of the worst GDP contractions in the world after the US during this period. Further, look at some of the contractions in construction-related activities below:

The Indian economy is passing through one of the toughest phases in its history due to COVID-19 impact and the subsequent lockdown to fight the pandemic. In the process, the industry and economy lost productive period in the past few months. Now, in the unlocking period, the government has framed many action plans to improve the economy. The most among these is perhaps, self-reliance or ‘Atmanirbharta’, in our Prime Minister’s own words. He has highlighted the importance of self-reliance in every area, like the way we did in agriculture. There was a time when we were struggling to feed our countrymen. But today we are not only feeding India, but also many other countries. According to the Prime Minister, we must reflect the same in other segments as well. The construction equipment (CE) industry also has a big opportunity in this direction. Union Minister for MSMEs and Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari, speaking at a recent CII virtual meet said that the government’s target is to make the country a manufacturing hub of construction equipment in the world. These words are encouraging for the CE manufacturers, albeit with the support of the government. Recently, India's premier defence research institute DRDO has identified 108 military systems and subsystems like navigation radars, tank transporters and missile canisters for the domestic industry to design, develop and manufacture. The list of items identified by the DRDO for domestic production included mini and micro UAVs, mountain footbridge, modular bridge, mines laying and marking equipment, armoured engineering reconnaissance vehicle and anti-terrorist vehicle (ATV) etc. There may be some opportunities for the industry here too. Currently, we are doing well in certain equipment, but there are many areas, especially heavy equipment segment where we still depend a lot on imports. Make in India will not only reduce imports but a lot more can be achieved on technology front and skill development. When we manufacture for the world, we are scaling up our skill sets and technology also.