After a lot of wrangling within various ministries, it seems the country’s first ever National Manufacturing Policy (NMP) is finally going to see the light of the day. At a meeting tomorrow, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) is likely to give nod to the implementation of the policy that aims to create 100 million jobs by 2025 and increase the share of manufacturing to 25 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) from 16 per cent at present.
A group of ministers, headed by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, held an emergency meeting with R P Singh, secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) under the ministry of commerce and industry, which is the nodal ministry for passing the policy, and Tishyarakshit Chatterjee, secretary, ministry of environment and forest.
It seems all issues got sorted out at the meeting and the Cabinet note was subsequently moved after a “little bit of language changes” on how the thorny issues would be provisioned in the policy, DIPP officials told Business Standard.
Differences had cropped up among the ministries of commerce and industry, environment and labour that led the Cabinet to defer the proposal last month. The CCEA was supposed to grant its approval on September 16. However, due to sharp objections from the environment and labour ministries, it got postponed leading to creation of the panel under Pawar. The PM had granted an in-principle approval to the draft policy in June.
The new policy envisages the creation of massive National Investment and Manufacturing Zones (NIMZ). It would also look into rationalising the plethora of rules and regulations by reducing the compliance burden on manufacturing units, particularly in NIMZs.
According to the draft policy, these issues would be handled by a single body while the chief executive officer heading it would be allowed to give the necessary clearances. The environment ministry had raised serious objections to this. It was also against the proposal of a third-party inspection of environment-related issues of units within the NIMZs.
On the other hand, the labour ministry was opposed to the proposal of creating a statutory service body for the small and medium enterprises, which would take care of all the financial obligations of its employees. It was decided that the body would be a commercially viable entity. This was meant for only those small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that would be located inside the zones. Besides, it has also raised objections to a proposal to create an expeditious exit mechanism for the investments locked up in businesses.
The first NIMZ is likely to come up along the corridor covering Haryana, Rajasthan and Gujarat where the work for Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor is also nearing completion. The NIMZs would be developed as integrated industrial townships, which would be managed by specific bodies.
