Make in India and renewable energy

Renewable energy’s job-creation potential is significant. But it brings with it the urgent, unmet need for skilling 

The renewable energy seminar held during the Make in India Week on 15 February was one of the best attended sessions. It served as a platform to discuss and reiterate several initiatives, both domestic and international, that the government is spearheading. These range from the flagship Make in India programme to the establishment of the International Solar Alliance (ISA). However, it is the synergies between these programmes that offer the greatest opportunity, but also need the most attention.

India’s mammoth renewable energy target of installing 175 gigawatts (GW) capacity by 2022 was officially announced in the 2015 budget speech. As we approach the next budget announcement, India’s total installed renewable energy capacity stands at close to 28GW, nearly 22% of the colossal target. As the country prepares to scale up its renewable energy capacity, it is important to recognize the need for a skilled workforce.

Given the population growth rate, India needs to create 10 million new jobs every year. Analysis carried out by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) estimates that more than 1 million full-time equivalent jobs would be created by the solar deployment industry alone, between now and 2022. These would include over 210,000 skilled plant design and site engineering jobs, 18,000 highly skilled jobs in business development and over 80,000 annual jobs for performance data monitoring.

Similarly, the wind sector would create 183,500 jobs by 2022, as wind capacity increases to 60GW. While the job creation potential of the renewable energy sector is significant, it also brings with it the urgent, and currently unmet need for skilling.

Analysis based on survey responses from 40 solar companies in India highlights the current unavailability of appropriately skilled manpower for construction and commissioning of solar units as a significant challenge to the solar industry. Similarly, wind sector respondents suggested that the current skilling programmes needed to be made more relevant and accessible, such that companies are assured of the high quality of training. This is where the ambitious renewable energy target of the country interlinks with the Skill India initiative, which aims to skill 400 million people by 2022. It will be crucial to develop standardized training programmes that can be implemented through institutes around the country, with training institutes being set up in areas with the most renewable energy potential and upcoming capacity.

As India hosted the first Make in India Week, focusing on increasing domestic manufacturing in India, the minister for power, coal, and new and renewable energy, Piyush Goyal, spoke of the need to have end-to-end solar manufacturing in the country. Recognizing the importance of strengthening domestic manufacturing in order to realize the national renewable energy targets, he promised that solar manufacturing in India was likely to get significantly cheaper in the next 18 months. The current annual solar manufacturing capacity in India stands at a meagre 4GW, cells and modules combined, whereas the annual wind manufacturing capacity stood close to 10GW. Strengthening domestic manufacturing of solar panels and wind turbines, at competitive prices, would further the objectives of the Make in India initiative, while also providing an impetus to the solar and wind industry.

CEEW–NRDC analysis, in the recently released report Filling the Skill Gap in India’s Clean Energy Market, suggests that skilling for research and product development would be essential for scaling up the manufacture of photovoltaic (PV) panels and wind turbines. Similarly, as several new entrepreneurs enter the market, both to manufacture and deploy renewable energy capacity, it will become interesting to view the synergies between the Start-up India initiative and the country’s renewable energy targets.

Cooperation could extend beyond just national missions. India’s recent pioneering effort to initiate the formation of ISA brings together 121 solar-rich countries on a common platform for cooperation to significantly augment the development, deployment and generation of solar technologies and power. While ISA will be an international organization, it has several shared focus areas with current domestic initiatives. One of the key pillars of the ISA work-plan is to facilitate capacity building for promotion and absorption of solar technologies and R&D among member countries. This resonates with the objectives of the Skill India initiative, as well as India’s domestic solar target. While the focus of ISA is going to be global, India’s domestic solar sector could benefit significantly from its recommendations and capacity building initiatives.

The time for transitioning to an energy future that has a significant component of renewable energy has come. The political support being extended to this sector is unprecedented. It is now that synergies that have been identified between the various ongoing initiatives offer the opportunity to support the scaling up of renewable energy, with access to high-quality and relevant training programmes, as well as support to the domestic solar and wind manufacturing market, both of which will play an important role in determining the pace of the renewable energy scale-up in India.

India’s failed diplomacy at the WTO

It has repeatedly failed to protect the domestic food security agenda 

The cabinet’s approval of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) on Wednesday is, on the face of it, a relatively innocuous development. As WTO deals go, this is low-hanging fruit. The agreement is to reduce administrative barriers at ports and customs, reducing transactional costs of international trade and consequently—according to various studies—increasing global gross domestic product by $1 trillion. This has found greater consensus between developed and developing economies than most WTO issues manage. But India has played spoiler—until now. The link between the TFA and India’s food security that led to New Delhi using the former as a bargaining chip may have been broken, but the underlying issue remains.

India’s stance across the previous and current administrations has been incoherent. The core issue is India’s public stockholding programme for food security. The price support mechanism this entails falls into the WTO’s so-called ‘amber’ box of agriculture subsidies—those that are considered to have a trade-distorting effect. These are barred beyond a minimum, calculated on the basis of a fixed reference price dating back three decades.

The fundamentally flawed nature of the system—particularly when the US’ massive agricultural subsidies, implemented via direct payments to farmers, fall into the WTO’s permissible green box—places India’s domestic and international commitments at odds. The previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) administration’s implementation of the populist and economically unsound National Food Security Act in 2013 exacerbated the problem as we had written in these pages. Remarkably, the same administration signed off on the Bali Package at the WTO’s Ninth Ministerial Conference later that year in exchange for a time-limited peace clause—a wholly inadequate four-year amnesty from punitive action for violations on the subsidy front. It thereby approved the TFA and gave up on using it as a bargaining chip to play hardball.

The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) stalled on the UPA’s TFA commitment in 2014—rightfully so. For all that, it found itself internationally isolated and branded the villain of the piece. It managed to win an indefinite extension of the peace clause; however, that is not a long-term option. The conditions attached to the clause have not been dropped and it bars the expansion of the food security programme to new areas.

New Delhi’s push for a permanent solution ran aground at the WTO’s Tenth Ministerial last December with member nations failing to reaffirm the Doha mandate—launched in 2001, and with a focus on development issues. Little wonder New Delhi has finally acceded to the TFA; the cost-benefit analysis no longer favours holding out.

The administration’s implementation of a pilot scheme in Chandigarh and Puducherry to shift to direct cash transfers for food subsidies is a silver lining here. It is a contentious issue with considerable ideological opposition. And it is no magic bullet. There are bound to be missteps and teething problems—inevitable given the scale of the enterprise and of the prerequisite financial inclusion push.

The resources sunk into the public distribution system to date and the lack of commensurate returns by and large, however, mean the administration must push through political opposition. From Devesh Kapur, Partha Mukhopadhyay and Arvind Subramanian’s comprehensive examination of the issue in 2008 in the Economic & Political Weekly to a Reserve Bank of India committee on financial inclusion last year, the benefits of switching to cash transfers such as reducing corruption and leakages in the system and better targeting are apparent. So are the opportunity costs of not doing so.

That said, the incipient move towards reforming the PDS—direct cash transfers as a form of food subsidy would not fall afoul of WTO regulations—don’t mitigate the failure of Indian diplomacy. The reform process is bound to be a lengthy, gradual affair. The timeline of such an essential public policy issue must be decided by domestic, not international, compulsions.

The development agenda has taken a beating of late in Nairobi and then again in Paris. And with the day of the BRICS grouping all but done as their economies tread divergent paths, a splintering of consensus among the leaders of the developing world has already begun to show. WTO negotiations will not get any easier from here on. New Delhi must do better than it has done so far.

Should the government push ahead with direct cash transfers

LIGO India could be operational by 2023: US scientist

With the Indian government giving in-principle approval for establishing a state-of- the-art LIGO interferometer in the country, a top US scientist has said it is “technically feasible” for the project to be operational by the end of 2023.
“It is technically feasible for LIGO-India to go online by the end of 2023,” said Fred Raab, head of the LIGO Hanford Observatory and LIGO Laboratory liaison for LIGO-India.
Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) scientists have made dozens of trips to India to work with Indian colleagues, especially with the three nodal institutes that would have primary responsibility for construction and operation of LIGO India — Institute of Plasma Research (IPR) Gandhinagar, Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune, and Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology (RRCAT), Indore.
“Together, we have identified an excellent site for the facilities and have transferred detailed LIGO drawings of the facilities and vacuum system to IPR, after adapting them for conditions in India,” he said.
The Union cabinet on 17 February, gave its approval in the wake of the announcement of LIGO’s detection of gravitational waves earlier this month.
“This is the step that we’ve been waiting for. It will allow funding for the LIGO-India project to begin, and commence a number of critical path activities toward getting a detector built in India,” said LIGO laboratory executive director David Reitze.
“Coming on the heels of the Discovery announcement, this has truly been an historic week for LIGO and for the field of gravitational wave astronomy,” he said.
The project will build an Advanced LIGO Observatory in India, a move that will significantly improve the ability of scientists to pinpoint the sources of gravitational waves and analyze the signals, a statement said.
Gravitational waves—ripples in the fabric of space and time, produced by dramatic events in the universe such as merging black holes and predicted as a consequence of Albert Einstein’s 1915 general theory of relativity, carry information about their origins and about the nature of gravity that cannot otherwise be obtained.
With their first direct detection, announced on 11 February, scientists opened a new window onto the cosmos.
The twin LIGO Observatories at Hanford, Washington, and Livingston, Louisiana, are funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF), and were conceived, built, and are operated by Caltech and MIT.
Advanced LIGO — a major upgrade to the sensitivity of the instruments compared to the first generation LIGO detectors — began scientific operations in September 2015. Funded in large part by the NSF, Advanced LIGO enabled a large increase in the volume of the universe probed, leading to the discovery of gravitational waves during its first observation run.
At each observatory, the 4-km-long L-shaped interferometer uses laser light split into two beams that travel back and forth down the arms (four-foot diameter tubes kept under a near-perfect vacuum). The beams are used to monitor the distance between mirrors precisely positioned at the ends of the arms.
According to Einstein’s theory, the distance between the mirrors will change by an infinitesimal amount when a gravitational wave passes by the detector. A change in the lengths of the arms smaller than one-ten- thousandth the diameter of a proton (10-19 metre) can be detected.
According to Reitze, the executive director of LIGO and a Caltech research professor, the degree of precision achieved by Advanced LIGO is analogous to being able to measure the distance between our solar system and the sun’s nearest neighbour Alpha Centauri -- about 4.4 light-years away, accurately to within a few microns, a tiny fraction of the diametre of a human hair.
“We have built an exact copy of that instrument that can be used in the LIGO-India Observatory,” said David Shoemaker, leader of the Advanced LIGO Project and director of the MIT LIGO Lab, “ensuring that the new detector can both quickly come up to speed and match the US detector performance”.
LIGO will provide Indian researchers with the components and training to build and run the new Advanced LIGO detector, which will then be operated by the Indian team, the statement said.
LIGO-India will also bring considerable opportunities in cutting edge technology for the Indian industry which will be engaged in the construction of the new observatory’s 4-kilometer-long beam tubes.
As per the US statement, Indian scientists at RRCAT have designed a special testing/prototype facility for receiving Advanced LIGO parts, have been training the teams that will install and commission the detector and are currently cross-checking the IPR vacuum system drawings against the Advanced LIGO detector drawings to ensure a good fit and rapid installation for the third Advanced LIGO detector.
In addition to leading the site-selection process, IUCAA scientists have been setting up a computing centre for current and future data. This preparation should make it possible for India to carry the project forward rapidly, it noted.
“LIGO-India will further expand the international network that started with the partnership between LIGO and Virgo, which operates a detector near Pisa, Italy,” said Stanley Whitcomb, LIGO chief scientist. “With LIGO-India added to the network, we will not only detect more sources, we will dramatically increase the number of sources that can be pinpointed so that they can be studied using other types of telescopes,”

Special Purpose Vehicles formed for implementation of Smart City Plans ; MP, Rajasthan take lead

Special Purpose Vehicles formed for implementation of Smart City Plans ; MP, Rajasthan take lead

23 Losers of Smart City Competition to meet 20 winners for peer learning

Shri Venkaiah Naidu to address the cities on challenges ahead

Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan have taken the lead in setting up Special Purpose Vehicles (SPV) for the implementation of Smart City Plans of the cities who have won in the first round of competition for selection of cities. Ministry of Urban Development has been informed that SPVs have been set up for Jabalpur, Indore and Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh and Jaipur and Udaipur in Rajasthan. These cities have been among the first batch of 20 winners of Smart City Challenge Competition announced on January 29,2016.

Ministry has also been informed that SPVs for the remaining 15 cities will be formed in the next two weeks. Ministry of Urban Development will release Rs.200 cr for each of the 20 selected cities only after SPVs are set up.

SPVs to be registered under the Companies Act,2013 will have 50:50 equity by the states and respective urban local bodies. Private equity is also allowed but the management control will rest with the Governments only.

SPVs are required to be set up under Smart City Mission Guidelines to ensure timely and efficient execution of plans with operational freedom. They approve, sanction and execute the projects besides mobilizing resources from various sources.

Madhya Pradesh has set up a 12 member SPV for each of the three cities. Respective District Collector will be the Chairman of the Board and respective Municipal Commissioner as Executive Director. Other members include representatives of central and state governments, nominee of the Mayor, 2 Independent Directors, representatives of DISCOMs, Public Health Engineering Department etc.

Rajasthan has set up a 11 Member SPV for Jaipur and a 13 Member body for Udaipur. Principle Secretary (Local Self Government) is the Chairman in both the cases. Mayor will be the Vice-Chairman and Municipal Commissioner will the Chief Executive Officer till a regular CEO is appointed. Representatives of central and state governments, 2 Independent Directors will also be on the Board.

Meanwhile, Ministry of Urban Development is organizing a day long workshop on Monday i.e February 22, 2016 where in 23 cities participating in the ‘Fast Track Competition’ will interact with first batch of 20 smart city winners for ‘peer learning’ about making winning proposals. One top ranked city from each of the 23 States and UTs that could not win in the first round are participating in this accelerated round of competition, under which these 23 cities have to submit revised proposals to the Ministry of Urban Development by April 15 this year.

These 23 cities will be advised on how to bridge the identified gaps in their Smart City Plans earlier submitted and evaluated in the first round of competition. Areas required to be improved include-financing plans, convergence of different schemes of central and stage governments, smart solutions and frugal solutions, consistency of area development plans etc.

Minister of Urban Development Shri M.Venkaiah Naidu will address the representatives of 43 cities.

The 20 winners will discuss next steps regarding operationalisation of SPVs project formulation and resource mobilization.

Experts and representatives of mentoring institutions like Centre for Science and Environment, Institute of Spatial Planning and Environment Research, Indian Institute of Human Settlements, All India Institute of Local Self Government, Administrative Staff College of India and hand holding institutions like world Bank, AFD, DFID, GIZ and Asian Development Bank will guide the winners and losers on the next steps.

The 23 cities participating in the ‘Fast Track Competition’ are : Warangal (Telangana) ranked 23 in the first round of competition, Chandigarh(24), Lucknow(29), New Town Kolkata (30), Panaji (32), Pasighat, Arunachal Pradesh(39), Dharamshala, HP(59), Raipur(62), Bhagalpur, Bihar(65), Karnal, Haryana(66), Shillong(70), Namchi, Sikkim(71), Port Blair(72), Diu (74), Oulgaret, Puducherry (75), Silvassa (78), Imphal (83), Ranchi (84), Agartala (85), Kohima (90), Aizawl (93), Kavaratti (95) and Dehradun (97).

Among the first batch of winners, Bhopal which was ranked 20 scored 55.47% marks in the first round of competition. Warangal scored 54.79 marks to lose in the competition by just 0.68 marks while Dehradun which was ranked at the bottom of 97 scored 38.13% losing in the competition by a margin of 17.34 marks.

At the workshop on Monday, these 23 cities will be assisted to bridge the gap so as to come to the level of marks scored by Bhopal and beyond.

Systems for Detection of Adulteration and Analysis of Milk

Minister for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences Dr. Harsh Vardhan Dedicates Systems for Detection of Adulteration and Analysis of Milk

The Union Minister for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences and Vice President, CSIR Dr. Harsh Vardhan today dedicated Systems for Detection of Adulteration and analysis of Milk. He complimented the Central Electronics Engineering Research Institute (CSIR-CEERI), Pilani of CSIR for developing this platform technology to tackle a national level health hazard due to adulteration in milk.

The Minister said that he will soon be reaching out to the Union Health Minister and the Health Ministers of all state governments to adopt and deploy this technology platform to address the problem of milk adulteration in the country. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) will also be asked to bring in the required regulatory intervention so as to ensure the delivery of quality milk, he added.

Dr. Harsha Vardhan pointed that our country ranks number one across the world for milk production, contributing to about 18% of the world's total milk. By volume, milk production is to the tune of about 146 million tonnes in the country. But it is feared that over 60% of the milk is contaminated due to malpractices in milk supply chain which includes dilution with unsafe water. The milk is otherwise said to be adulterated with contaminants such as urea, salt, detergent, liquid soap, boric acid, caustic soda, soda and hydrogen peroxide which have hazardous health effects.

The gravity of the situation had been such that NITI Aayog identified the problem of detecting adulteration in the milk within three minutes at Rs. 4 or less, as one of the Grand Challenge Areas being considered under the Atal Innovation Mission.

In this backdrop, the Minister appreciated the initiative of CSIR for developing and deploying this technology solution, ‘Ksheer-Scanner’, which instantaneously detects the above-identified adulterants in milk. It is a low- cost portable system with user-friendly features. It enables detection of contaminants in just 40-45 seconds at the per sample cost of less than 50 paise. The minimum detection levels of major contaminants are: Urea: 1 gm/l; salt: 2 gm/l; detergent: 2 gm/l; soap: 1%; and soda: 1 gm/l.

DG, CSIR Dr. Girish Sahni, stated that among the many benefits of ‘Ksheer Scanner’, the system offers automated scanning of raw milk samples at milk collection points. He remarked that it is safe to use and ideal for installation at milk collection centres of milk societies at village and tehsil levels. The system can also be useful for on-the-spot milk testing by food inspectors. The system has been successfully tested at various dairies located in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, he added.

Prof. R.K Sinha, Director of the CSIR-Central Electronics Engineering Research Institute, Pilani said that the technology, ‘Ksheer-Scanner’ has been transferred to Rajasthan Electronics & Instruments Ltd. (REIL) and Alpine Technologies, Surat, Gujarat, for commercialization. He said that some of the field trials were conducted jointly with REIL and they sold about 40 systems which have been deployed at dairies in Gujarat, Goa, Kerala Punjab and Rajasthan,. Currently the system from REIL costs about Rs.1,00,000/- but the price may come down with volumes. Scientists from the Institutes gave a demonstration of the equipment

CSIR is also in the process of building a portfolio of technologies for detecting milk adulteration and analysis of milk quality, namely, ultrasonic-based milk contents analyser (KSHEER ANALYSER) for fats, solid non-fats, protein, lactose, density and water addition; Infra-red Radiation based Fat Analyser (IRFAN); Rapid Milk Analyser (KSHEER ANALYSER+); Milk Adulteration and Content Analysis (KSHEER SCANNER PLUS); and Handheld Milk Adulteration Tester for domestic usage (KSHEER-TESTER).

The ‘Ksheer-Analyser’ is a portable instrument with user-friendly operation that allows for measurement of milk constituents in less than 45 seconds, with accuracy of ± 0.1% of fats and accuracy of ± 0.2% of SNF. This system is targeted at a low cost of less than Rs. 10000.

The ‘Ksheer-Tester’ is a handheld device with a single button operation that allows for detection of adulterants in less than 60 seconds. It allows for measuring contaminants such as Urea: 1gm/l; Salt: 2gm/l; detergent: 2gm/l; soap: 1%; soda: 1gm/l; boric acid and hydrogen peroxide in ppm.

The ‘Ksheer-Scanner Plus’ is planned to be an integrated system aimed at detecting adulteration in milk as well as analysing the quality of milk. Efforts are being made to deploy this technology in the next few months.

Besides, CSIR-Central Food Technological Research Institute (CSIR-CFTRI) located in Mysuru has developed a nanosensor kit for rapid detection and quantification of Vitamin A (beta-carotene) in milk. Using the kit, farmers can easily identify the presence and quantity of beta-carotene, an indicator of the micro-nutrient quality of milk. Based on the results, farmers can alter the feed to cattle to increase beta-carotene in milk and can also sell the value added milk (with higher beta-carotene) for a higher price. CSIR aims to make the technology reach farmers at an affordable price. This technology is expected to lead to production of larger quantities of Vitamin A (beta-carotene) rich milk in future to help children to get sufficiency of vitamin A, of which most of them are deprived of now.

These various milk adulteration kits and milk safety testing protocols developed by CSIR will provide effective technology interventions necessary for “Swastha Bharat”, the Minister concluded.

All urban poor now to be assisted with livelihood opportunities

All urban poor now to be assisted with livelihood opportunities

NULM extended to 3,250 more statutory urban local bodies from the present 790

States given flexibility in implementation

681 more towns covered in Tamil Nadu, UP-566, MP-310, Maharashtra-213, Karnataka-186, Gujarat- 160, Rajasthan-145, Chattisgarh-140

To benefit urban poor in 130 towns in the North-East

Renamed as DAY-NULM

Government has extended the National Urban Livelihood Mission (NULM) to all the 4,041 statutory urban local bodies in the country. NULM is now renamed as ‘Deen Dayal Antyodaya Yojana-NULM’ and in Hindi as ‘Deen Dayal Antyodaya Yojana-Rashtriya Shahri Aajeevika Mission’. This mission seeks to enhance the employment opportunities and incomes of the urban poor through skill development and training, setting up of individual and group micro-enterprises, formation of Self-Help Groups, building shelters for homeless, supporting street vendors in creating infrastructure, innovative support to rag pickers, differently abled etc.

NULM introduced in 2013 is being presently implemented in only 791 cities across the country covering all district headquarters and cities and towns with a population of above one lakh each. Now all the States and Union Territories have been empowered to implement DAY-NULM in all the remaining 3,250 statutory urban local bodies even if they have a population of less than one lakh each.

In Tamil Nadu, the highest number of 681 towns will now be covered under DAY-NULM while at present only 40 cities are implementing this pro-poor scheme. This is followed by UP-566/82, Madhya Pradesh-310/54, Maharashtra-213/53, Karnataka-186/34, Gujarat-160/35, Rajasthan-145/40, Chattisgarh-140/28, Punjab-118/25, Bihar-97/42, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana-78/47, Odisha-74/33, West Bengal-66/63, Jammu & Kashmir-64/22, Uttarakhand-58/16, Haryana-58/22, Himachal Pradesh-46/10, Kerala-45/14 and in Goa, 12 new towns will be covered as against only two towns at present.

In the North-Eastern states, 130 new towns will be included for the implementation of DAY-NULM as against 88 towns at present. Among the Union Territories, one more town will be covered in Pudcherry.

In all, DAY-NULM will benefit urban poor in 1,505 new towns in the North, 991 towns in the South, 375 in the West, 249 in the East and 130 more towns in the North-East.

In another modification of the existing scheme of NULM where in the implementing cities are required to implement all the components of the scheme, new towns to be covered can implement any one are a combination of the components.

Under ‘Employment through Skill Training and Placement’ component of DAY-NULM, an expenditure of Rs.15,000 per person is allowed on training of urban poor which is Rs.18,000 in North-East and J&K. Under revised norms, cost of training has been increased by 5%.

Under ‘Social Mobilisation and Institution Development’ through formation of Self-Help Groups for training members and hand holding, an initial support of Rs.10,000 is given for each group. For Registered Area Level Federations of such groups, assistance of Rs.50,000 is provided.

Urban poor are also assisted with interest subsidy of 5%-7% for setting up individual micr-enterprises with a loan of up to Rs.2 lakh and for group enterprises with a loan limit of up to Rs.10 lakhs.

Cost of construction of shelters for urban homeless is fully funded under the Scheme with each such shelter accommodating at least 50 homeless is funded under DAY-NULM.

Other means of helping the urban poor is through setting up infrastructure for street vendors and innovative and special projects for rag pickers, differently abled etc.

National Capital goods policy unveiled

National Capital goods policy unveiled

Anant Geete says policy a gateway to endless opportunities for Capital goods; terms it as an initiative spearheaded by department of Heavy Industry

The Government has unveiled the National Capital Goods Policy. Addressing a seminar on the subject of ‘Capital Goods and Engineering: Realising the Make in India Vision, in Mumbai today, the Union Minister of Heavy Industry and Public Enterprises Shri Anant Ganga Ram Geete said that realising the strategic importance of Capital Goods and the pivotal role played by it  in the overall manufacturing, as the pillar of strength to the vision of “Make in India”, the government has now come out with this policy.  He also said this as an endeavour to drive growth for Capital Goods sector, as well  as a  part of Government’s commitment to help realise this vision of “Building India as the World class hub for Capital Goods”.  The Minister added  that this is a  first time ever policy of this sector, with a clear objective of increasing production of capital goods from ~Rs. 230,000 Cr in 2014-15 to Rs. 750,000 Cr in 2025 and raising direct and indirect employment from the current 8.4 million to ~30 million. The policy envisages increasing exports from the current 27% to 40% of production while increasing share of domestic production in India's demand from 60% to 80%, thus making India a net exporter of capital goods. The policy also aims to facilitate improvement in technology depth across sub-sectors, increase skill availability, ensure mandatory standards and promote growth and capacity building of MSMEs.

“National Capital Goods Policy” is a unique Government led- industry driven manoeuvre for scripting a new growth narrative in the history of industrial development. The Department of Heavy Industry had set up a Joint Taskforce with Confederation of Indian industry (CII) as an attempt to ensure that the formulation of the Capital Goods Policy is done in the most democratic manner and the recommendations would carve out a roadmap for Capital Goods sector to become  a part of global value chains apart from mere supply chains. The policy has been framed after extensive stakeholders’ consultations with industry, academia, different ministries etc.

The aim of the policy is to create game changing strategies for the capital goods sector. Some of the key issues addressed include Availability of Finance, Raw Material, Innovation and Technology, Productivity, Quality and Environment Friendly Manufacturing Practices, Promoting Exports and Creating Domestic Demand.

Key policy recommendations include strengthening the existing scheme of the DHI on enhancement of competitiveness of Capital Goods Sector by increasing budgetary allocation for increasing scope to further boost global competitiveness in various sub sectors of CG. The aim is to enhance the export of Indian made capital goods through  a 'Heavy Industry Export & Market Development Assistance Scheme (HIEMDA)'. Launching a Technology Development Fund , upgrading the existing and setting up new testing & certification facilities, making standards mandatory in order to reduce sub-standard machine imports are other measures envisaged. It also aims to provide opportunity to local manufacturing units by utilising their installed capacity and launching scheme of skill development for CG sector.