"That opportunity appears to have gone to China, and since then, to some other Asian countries," he said in a hard-hitting interview to 'Business world' while blaming the prolonged protected environment for production of goods that were not up to consumers' aspirations.
Tata, which beat Reliance to number one position in terms of market capitalisation of the group companies in private sector after the listing of Tata Consultancy Services, was sceptical about India emerging among the majors in the manufacturing sector saying "my sense is that we lost that opportunity."
He said "for India to come into that, it has to move very fast. It has to be able to grasp technology and that takes time ...The question is whether the world will stand still while that happens. It will keep moving and India will have to move faster," he said.
Tata, on the other hand, said India had the advantage in areas where inputs had a higher knowledge base, higher engineering skills but "are not necessarily innovative."
Tata felt pharmaceuticals industry is closest to 'real manufacturing' capabilities and said there had been very little incentive for development, for focussed know-how and for the things that make manufacturing competitive.
India fell largely in the category of nations where industry under licence agreement continued to manufacture a given product without embracing technology and capabilities to develop a product.
"When you can't do it anymore, you find a collaborator who gives you the licence to manufacture, or to import whatever the collaborator says. You install a plant and produce that product," he said, adding even in the engineering industry by-and-large India had licensed manufacturers.
Stating that more enterprising companies did some reverse engineering, Tata said only a few were actually developing a new product by themselves.
"The Japanese did that in the fifties but by the sixties they were ahead of whoever they were copying," he quipped.
In the arena of trade, the industry leader was for breaking down all barriers between countries saying the increasing number of bilateral agreements that were being signed today were causing internal problems for the World Trade Organisation.
"If India were to be part of one or more trading blocks, or free trade zone, I think it would be a great plus," he said but cautioned saying the flip side was that a free trade agreement includes things that Indian manufacturers need to recognise and that they need to compete.