at present the overall automotive component consumption in india stands at about 60 billion annuallynew delhi for the indian automobile sector one of the positive and lasting impacts of the coronavirus pandemic will surely be a solid transformation to localised supplychains in the third episode of online cxo roundtable series organised by etautocom in association with siemens some of the top industry leaders discussed the way to achieve this target appreciating the governments mosttouted phased manufacturing programme pmp arvind kapur chairman of auto component manufacturing firm rico auto said that the component industry responded very well to the scheme and invested heavily in building a local supply chain base advt it is prudent to change our manufacturing style lot of work needs to be done to implement digitisation smart manufacturing and industry 40 on our shop floorsarvind kapur chairman rico autohowever he added that achieving 100 percent localisation is going to be a daunting task for the industry especially in the postcoronavirus period it is prudent to change our manufacturing style lot of work needs to be done to implement digitisation smart manufacturing and industry 40 on our shop floors indian companies are getting into that direction but we need to be more aggressive especially after the coronavirus period kapur asserted at present the overall automotive component consumption in india stands at about 60 billion annually out of that components worth usd 175 dollars are imported which is 27 percent of the total consumption rest 63 percent is produced locally panelists highlighted that after going through the shock of coronavirus it is not unusual for homegrown as well as overseas oems to further intensify their focus on low cost suppliers including setting up factories in relatively cheap labour markets more and more large multinational companies who have not invested in rd setup in india are likely to set up such centers in the country soon pointed out rajeev singh partner automotive deloitte the reason for them is simple they want to ensure that their own cost of rd goes down and is contained secondly they believe that india has the talent to develop these products locally said singh advt he further said that there are few clusters in the country which are capable of developing the right technology and can efficiently contribute to the new platform design and development this will trigger the need to build robust domestic rd hubs in the next couple of years and with this rd shift happening we will progress towards developing a larger manufacturing base in the country added singh also read tata motors approach to seamless design and development in covid timesciting an example of chinas business model nagesh basavanhalli md ceo greaves cotton said the government of the country boosted rd development by providing additional incentives to the companies we also need to take such initiative to accelerate the use of technology he emphasised the automotive industry is a highly interdependent sector that requires the synchronisation of a wide range of