Heavy Industries Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh today said three per cent of nation's GDP is wasted due to corrosion of machines and tools which can be saved with proper maintenance and repair.
"Maintenance is really the backbone of any engineering industry. Very serious industrial accidents have happened due to poor maintenance," Deshmukh said here while inaugurating CII's Industrial Maintenance Expo.
Expressing concern that 15-20 per cent of industry's manufacturing cost was incurred due to corrosion, the minister said that there is need to encourage public sector units to measure and reduce this waste.
"This waste contributes around 3 per cent of our GDP due to corrosion...Government and industry should jointly wage a war on these wastes - breakdowns and corrosions," he said.
The government and industry together would be able to spread awareness about the importance of maintenance and corrosion to minimise losses in India.
Calling upon industry not to adopt a penny-wise pound- foolish approach towards equipment maintenance, Deshmukh said that government and industry should jointly work to improve plant maintenance to achieve zero breakdowns and corrosions.
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"Maintenance is a daily job. We have to practice maintenance on each and every equipment in our factories...We can bring down our maintenance costs drastically through this initiative," he added.
Deshmukh said that the US have a Corrosion Act under which organisations taking preventive measures against Corrosion are incentivised.
"We have some distance to go towards such an Act, but creating awareness and building capabilities to counter this evil is important," he added.