The Union ministry of commerce and industry is set to announce the National Design Policy, which would address issues such as design education, design use, standard setting and design requirements in the country.The ministry is also examining the feasiblity of setting up an 'India design council and a 'good design' selection system as 'design mark' to encourage optimal use of design by industries and other sectors."The need of a National Design Policy was advocated by the National Institute of Design (NID) three years back and recently it got the ministry's approval. We need to develop a blue print for the Indian design education and introduce design curriculum in schools, engineering collages, mass media and other institutes," said Darlie O Koshy, executive director, NID, on Thursday.Kamal Nath, minister of commerce and industry, at the Confederation of Indian Industries-NID fourth Summit 2004 on 'Envisioning Design in Business Strategy' on last Wednesday expressed his willingness to come out with the design policy. "There is no good faculty available for design education in the country. China is having 30,000 design professionals, while UK has 70,000 professionals. At the same time India has only 3,000 designers," Koshy said.The ministry has decided to hold four stakeholders' meetings in different cities, and also put a paper concept on the Internet. The first interactive session to elicit views of designers and businessman was held recently in Delhi by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion is association with CII and NID.Other stakeholders' meeting are scheduled to be held in Kolkata, Mumbai and Bangalore shortly.NID had made suggestions for the need to have promotion measures including the constitution of the steering group, an appropriate body - Design India Council, Indian mark for goods design (I-Mark), system and award design centre with periodic international design expositions.Earlier, Koshy represented the ministry on the centrality and the importance of design in the challenging environment that is focussing on innovation, knowledge and differentiation as a key pillars driving change towards framework of National Design Policy.In his presentation to the ministry, Koshy drew from the experience of over 25 countries across continents that have used design effectively in developing a competitive environment for business through enhanced societal awareness about the importance and contribution of design in daily life.
