Hailing the recently announced National Manufacturing Policy, the Confederation of Indian Industry stated that this would revolutionize the manufacturing sector of India and leverage our demographic dividend effectively.

Mr B Muthuraman president of CII said that “While some fiscal incentives have been provided, the key is the simplification of administrative procedures and world-class infrastructure facilities that would greatly encourage incremental investment in the manufacturing sector.”

Some of the proposed fiscal measures in the NMP include Capital Gains Tax exemption on sale of plant and machinery for units in the National Investment and Manufacturing Zones for re investment in new plant & machinery for helping technology upgradation and development; exemption to individuals from long term capital gains on sale of property especially for SMEs, entrepreneurs and units that create jobs; third party inspections with respect to environment rules and simpler clearance processes. The timely implementation of these would accelerate investments and manufacturing growth.

Commending the Government for meeting the concerns of all stakeholder, CII said that this shows the strength of the Indian consultative process of decision-making. “

Mr Chandrajit Banerjee director general of CII said that “Along with existing schemes for manufacturing, we believe that the NIMZ as outlined in the NMP would push manufacturing growth to 12% to 14% as envisaged. This is a stretch target for the next decade, but the NMP creates the right framework for achieving it.”

The emphasis on the boosting the small and medium enterprises is particularly welcome with steps for reducing compliance burden and improving access to finance.

The CII release said that manufacturing GDP growth in most competing countries is much higher than the national GDP growth, whereas for India, the national GDP at 7% is higher than manufacturing GDP at 6.8%. The National Manufacturing policy will provide the foundation for manufacturing to leap to the next growth orbit which would enhance manufacturing share to country’s GDP to 25%.

CII said that the objective of the NMP to create 100 million new jobs is particularly welcome given that the country will add an estimated 20 million youth to the workforce annually, emphasized CII. This endeavour will be boosted by supply side measures to provide requisite skills for the less-skilled section of the workforce, which will enable their productive participation in the nation’s growth and boost their incomes. CII has already been working with DGET for modular training programs and these would be greatly scaled up.