He was speaking at a seminar on “Capital Goods and Engineering: Realizing the ‘Make in India’ Vision” on February 15, as part of the Make in India week being held in Mumbai. The mega event is being organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in partnership with Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) and the Government of Maharashtra.
It is an endeavour to drive growth for Capital Goods sector, and a part of Government’s commitment to help realise this vision of “Building India as the World class hub for Capital Goods”.
The policy envisages increasing exports from the current 27% to 40% of production while increasing share of domestic production in India’s demand from 60% to 80%, thus making India a net exporter of capital goods.
The policy also aims to facilitate improvement in technology depth across sub-sectors, increase skill availability, ensure mandatory standards and promote growth and capacity building of MSMEs.
“National Capital Goods Policy” is a unique Government led- industry driven man oeuvre for scripting a new growth narrative in the history of industrial development. The Department of Heavy Industry set up a Joint Taskforce with Confederation of Indian industry (CII) as an attempt to ensure that formulation of the Capital Goods Policy is done in the most democratic manner and the recommendations being made carve a roadmap for Capital Goods that makes the sector a part of global value chains apart from mere supply chains.
The policy has been framed after extensive stakeholders’ consultations with industry, academia, different ministries etc to finalize the key recommendations which will support and boost development of this crucial sector
The aim of the policy is to create game changing strategies for the capital goods sector. Some of the key issues addressed include Availability of Finance, Raw Material, Innovation and Technology, Productivity, Quality and Environment Friendly Manufacturing Practices, Promoting Exports and Creating Domestic Demand.
Key policy recommendations include strengthening the existing scheme of the DHI on enhancement of competitiveness of Capital Goods Sector by increasing budgetary allocation and increasing its scope to further boost global competitiveness in various sub sectors of CG, enhancing the export of Indian made capital goods through a ‘Heavy Industry Export & Market Development Assistance Scheme (HIEMDA)’, launching a Technology Development Fund , upgrading existing and setting up new testing & certification facility, making standards mandatory in order to reduce sub-standard machine imports and at the same time providing opportunity to local manufacturing units by utilising their installed capacity and launching scheme of skill development for CG sector.
While addressing an Inaugural session, Anant G Geete said that the capital goods sector is currently going through many challenges and issues and to address those challenges, the Government has launched the comprehensive Policy Document the National Capital Goods Policy today. “The clear objective of the National Capital Goods Policy” is of increasing production of capital goods from ~Rs. 230,000 Cr in 2014-15 to Rs. 750,000 Cr in 2025 and raising direct and indirect employment from the current 8.4 million to ~30 million”, he further added.
Geete lauded the Industry for their efforts and contribution towards the CG sector specially MSME Industry. He assured that the Ministry of Heavy Industries & Public Enterprises will hand hold the industry for building India as the World class hub for Capital Goods. He further suggested that the need of the hour is to adopt and accept the latest technologies available across the World to promote CG sector. He also mentioned that presently India is the most secure destination for investments with adequate manpower.
Source: CII Press Release
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