To get to the industrial estates on the outskirts of India’s capital, the best way is by Delhi Metro, since the broad highways closer to the centre of the city soon turn into dirt tracks. Beyond the buildings are dusty fields through which the occasional water buffalo wanders.

Visitors who expect huge factories in grandly named places like the Mangolpuri industrial estate must quickly scale down their expectations. Most establishments take up a single floor of the three-storey buildings and have just a handful of machines. Many of these are bought third-hand and are only semi-automatic or hand operated. Their few high-tech automatic machines are often refurbished second-hand imports. Indeed, there is little that is large-scale about Indian manufacturing.

But the country has belatedly discovered that it needs manufacturing to provide jobs for its school leavers and create work for migrants from the countryside.