Govt to set up working group on new industrial policy

The government will soon constitute a working group on the proposed new industrial policy which is aimed at promoting emerging sectors, reducing regulatory hurdles and making India a manufacturing hub, an official has said.

Earlier, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) had prepared the policy and sent it for the Union Cabinet approval, but certain new suggestions have been made with regard to the policy.

The working group will rework on it and submit the same to the DPIIT, the official said.

The group will have members from different government departments of the Centre and states, as well as from industry chambers, including the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

This will be the third industrial policy after the first in 1956 and the second in 1991. It will replace the industrial policy of 1991 which was prepared in the backdrop of the balance of payment crisis.

The DPIIT had initiated the process of formulation of a new industrial policy in May 2017. The new policy will subsume the National Manufacturing Policy (NMP).

A consultative approach had been taken for policy formulation wherein six thematic focus groups had been used to obtain inputs.

The six areas include manufacturing and MSME; technology and innovation; ease of doing business; infrastructure, investment, trade and fiscal policy; and skills and employability for the future.

It was proposed that the new policy would aim at making India a manufacturing hub by promoting Make in India.

The department had floated discussion paper on the policy with an aim to create jobs for the next two decades, promote foreign technology transfer and attract $100 billion FDI annually.

It had outlined several constraints to industrial growth -- inadequate infrastructure; restrictive labour laws; complicated business environment; slow technology adoption; low productivity; challenges for trade; and inadequate expenditure on R&D and innovation.