Focus on manufacturing: CII

Standardise quality norms: Mittal

Industry in the northern region should focus on making manufacturing its core area of competence to capitalise on the rising trend of outsourcing in the West, Rakesh Bharti Mittal, the newly-elected chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industry (northern region), told Business Standard.

"India has long been seen as the outsourcing hub for information technology. But, the world has to now identify product manufacturing as the strength of Indian companies. So, industries must improve on skillsets of engineers and quality norms should be standardised," Mittal said.

He cited the example of Atlinks, a subsidiary of Thompson, which will source 1 million phones from Bharti Teletech. He said other industries should also see this as an opportunity and develop their manufacturing capabilities.

Under Mittal, the CII (northern region) will focus on industrial, agricultural and regional competitiveness. It has formed 14 regional sub-committees comprising biotechnology, economic affairs, human resource and industrial resource, infotech, manufacturing technology, power and energy, small and medium enterprises, tourism healthcare and customer relationship management.

The chamber will also be lobbying for implementing the value added tax (VAT), labour reforms and simplification of procedures.

A consultancy body called CII-L M Thapar Centre of Competitiveness is also being set up to provide consultancy services to industries in the northern region.

Also, besides the Mohali industrial cluster, the CII will form another industrial cluster in Gurgaon to provide a platform to smaller players in the region.