Making in India since 1979, Raj Narayan of Radel Group

Will ‘Make in India’ remain a vision or transform Indian manufacturing? What does the government need to do to enable the manufacturing and hardware industry to turn the PM’s vision of Make in India a reality? We caught up with Raj Narayan, Managing Director of the Radel Group, who has been making in India for 35 years to understand what it takes.

Raj, who grew up in a musically inclined family, was introduced to Indian classical music quite early in his life. He not just learnt but also gave numerous performances. Passion for music led him to create electronics musical instruments after he finished his electronics engineering.

Another passion that Raj was consumed by was aircraft designing. At a very young age he started designing model aircraft. Later, he went to join the designing division of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited or HAL.

A few years later, he turned both his passion into a successful venture and formed the Radel Group in 1979. The Radel Group is into making indigenous design and manufacturing for aerospace and defense sectors and digital music instruments.

Raj Narayan, in this chat, talks about the importance of Make in India and also emphasises the role of the government, and how things like labour laws need to change in order to not just encourage Indian manufacturers but also encourage investments from other countries.

Raj is also the Chief Mentor of Drona Centre for Excellence, an initiative that focuses on creating skilled manpower especially for the defense and aerospace sector. Drona was conceived out of Raj’s interest in teaching and realising that fresh engineering graduates lack practical skills to fit into the industry. Drona has a comprehensive training programme which engineers can go through to not just add to their skills but fit in directly into the industry.

Video editor: Anjali Achal

Cameraman : Rukmangada Raja