Action plan for 'Make in India' on Monday

The central government will on Monday take stock of the ground-level problems faced by the 25 sectors identified in 'Make in India' to prepare action plans for one to three years. Make in India is aimed at transforming India into a manufacturing hub by improving ease of doing business in India. State governments and industries can help in making this a success.

On Monday, a high-profile daylong workshop - "Sectoral Perspectives and Initiatives" - will be organised with ministers, industries and state chief secretaries to deliberate on various concerns of different sectors. These would then be presented to the prime minister later in the day at the same workshop, on the basis of which action plans would be prepared.

The inaugural address will be given by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. Some of the actions plans, including suggestions on inverted duty structure faced by many sectors, may be included in the Budget, sources said. Other issues to be discussed are land acquisition, taxation and inter-ministerial differences.

There will be 16 sessions on the 25 sectors, each chaired by the department secretary concerned. One session will be held on the states, and there would also be a session with the prime minister. "In the sector-specific sessions, we will discuss all the challenges extensively and prepare the action plan for one and three years. The secretary concerned will then present the plan to the Prime Minister and will commit to implementing that," an official said.

Representatives of Ford India, Maruti Suzuki, Mahindra & Mahindra, oil PSUs, Confederation of Indian Industry and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry would participate in the event.

Consultants - Boston Consulting Group, Bain and Company, KPMG - would provide the knowledge support to the workshop. Sector-wise status reports prepared by these consultants would be deliberated upon.

When asked what steps have been taken since the launch of the Make in India campaign, sources said the steps taken include the department of revenue issuing tax deduction account number online to companies, launching of a portal to comply with labour laws, amendment in Apprenticeship Act, liberalising the defence sector in terms of doing away with licensing in the number of areas, reducing the paper work to three from nine in terms of clearance from customs etc.

When asked what happened to liberalising labour laws for the National Investment and Manufacturing Zones, they said this would also be done shortly.

India ranks 142 out of 189 countries in terms of ease of doing business ranking of the World Bank of India. The government aims to improve the ranking to 50. When asked whether the target is too ambitious and could be achieved in a span of one year, the sources said it may be a reality within two years.

In September, Modi had launched the 'Make in India' campaign to attract foreign investors and make the country a global manufacturing hub. As many as 25 sectors have been identified as focus segments under the programme.

The manufacturing sector now contributes about 16-17 per cent and the government aims to increase it to 25 per cent by 2022.

Dashing hopes of recovery, manufacturing production contracted by 7.6 per cent in October, the sharpest decline in over five years. Overall, 16 of the 22 industry groups in manufacturing showed negative growth in October.