The government on Monday unveiled a National Capital Goods Policy to give an impetus to the capital goods sector and a leg up to the Make in India initiative. This is for the first time that a national policy has been framed for the sector.
Anant Geete, Minister, Heavy Industry & Public Enterprise, while unveiling the Policy on the occasion of the Make in India Week held in Mumbai said the policy would drive growth for Capital Goods sector, and a part of Government’s commitment to help realise this vision of turning India into a world class hub for Capital Goods.
The policy envisages increasing exports from the current 27 per cent to 40 per cent of production while increasing share of domestic production in India’s demand from 60 per cent to 80 per cent, 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.
Speaking at a seminar on Capital Goods sector organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in partnership with Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) and the Government of Maharashtra, Mr Geete said, “The aim 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.
The key policy recommendations include strengthening the existing scheme of the DHI (Department of Heavy Industry) 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 Capital Goods, enhancing the export of Indian made capital goods through a ‘Heavy Industry Export & Market Development Assistance Scheme (HIEMDA)’.
It has also made provision for 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 Capital Goods sector.
Mr. Geete said that the clear objective of the Policy is to increase production of capital goods from Rs. 230,000 crore in 2014-15 to Rs. 750,000 crore in 2025 and raising direct and indirect employment from the current 8.4 million to 30 million.
Sumit Mazumder, President, CII said that the Government has taken ‘unprecedented and innovative’ steps with multi-dimensional endeavour to boost manufacturing, such as targeting skill development, FDI, R&D and most significantly ease of doing business.