The new National Manufacturing Plan, conceived by Planning Commission, targets to create at least 100 million additional jobs in manufacturing sector by 2025.
To create such huge number of jobs, emphasis should be given on developing appropriate skill sets among the rural migrant and urban poor to make the growth process inclusive, said Varoon Raghavan, Consultant, Planning Commission, at a seminar on “Sustainable Manufacturing in Odisha: A Way Forward” organized by Orissa Chapter of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
He said, two to four per cent growth rate of the overall economy will enable manufacturing to contribute at least 25 per cent to the national GDP by 2025.For implementation of the plan, he said, a dialogue will be initiated with the state governments.
Speaking on the occasion, CJ Venugopal, chairman cum managing director (CMD) of Industrial Promotion and Investment Corporation (Ipicol) said, the state government is planning to introduce sector specific policies for non-mineral sectors like IT/ITes, auto components, paper industries, steel and aluminum downstream and ancillary industries as these sectors have great potential in the state.
Asked why the big ticket projects have failed to take off in the state even after the signing of MoUs, Venugopal said, MoUs are just facilitating instruments for large projects but not statutory in nature.
“It is the large projects which are asking for signing MoUs while the small and medium industries are not making fuss about signing MoUs and silently progressing with their projects in the state. For example, Britannia, which is setting up a medium scale confectionary unit near Khurda, is set to start production in April though the company has not signed any MoU with the state government”, he added.