It depends on why the machine was invented and where it is being used. Rather than having cement truck mixers, cranes, metal scaffolds, and conveyor belts, it is easier and cheaper in India to hire people for a few cents a day to mix the cement by hand, and carry the cement in baskets to where it is needed on bamboo scalfolding. Why invest large amounts of capital in machines that need to be maintained and replaced?
What you saw in India was not that. What you saw was how a Tradition oriented society and and overly interventionist Government screws up a market. Labor was cheaper in India because the Govt of Indias economic polices made the machine difficult and expensive to import at the same time making internal development of the same machine substandard or nonexistent.
What I saw was a developing country operating on free market principles. Labor intensive activities also work on the political level, i.e., they provide employment for the poor and uneducated. Of course, you can always ship the problem out to a richer country like Mexico does.
US businesses are relocating their operations to China? Why? Cheap and plentiful labor. There is a reason why we don't manufacture TVs anymore in the US. No amount of efficient machines is going to change that fact.