Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will chair a ministerial meeting next week on the manufacturing policy which is expected to be unveiled soon.
The country's first manufacturing policy would come out soon and the Prime Minister scheduled to hold a meeting in this regard on June 9, Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma said today.
The policy suggests setting up of National Investment and Manufacturing Zones (NIMZS) as mega investment regions.
This would help increase the contribution of the manufacturing sector to the country's GDP from 16% to 25% by 2025, Sharma said.
The meeting to discuss the draft manufacturing policy was initially scheduled for June 2 but was postponed, he said, adding, the policy will come out soon.
Sharma was speaking at a meeting organised by Federation of Indian Exports Organisation, Tiruppur Exports Association and industry body SICCI here.
The Ministry was aware that the manufacturing sector's contribution to GDP was stagnating at 16 per cent, he said adding the situation had to be changed.
Earlier, Sharma said the Ministry had embarked on digitalisation in assocation with the Directorate General of Foreign Trade to address grievances and complete procedures on time as the present practice involving paper work was time consuming.
The Ministry was also planning to bring in all other stake holders like ports and customs under the digitalisation plan.
"This is a major step that has been taken (by the Ministry) ..With this we have already seen the backlog getting reduced from six months to two months...", he said.
The Minister also said zonal directors of the DGFT would conduct a quarterly audit on the performance of the offices so that all the grievances are addressed on time.
To a query raised by an exporter on the Bank Realisation Certification, he said "It is one of the challenges faced (by the industry).. I will be taking up the issue with RBI, Finance Minister and Chairmen of all major banks whether it can be interlinked online..", he said.
According to FIEO President Ramu S Deora, exporters require a Bank realisation certificate to claim any benefit in addition to shipping bills.
However, most exporters find it difficult to get the BRC from Banks and produce it before the DGFT to claim the benefit.
The Commerce Ministry wants the BRCs to be made online, to bring down the costs, he said.
