Govt plans Monitoring body for Manufacturing Policy

The government plans to form a Manufacturing Industry Promotion Board (MIPB) that would seek to implement the new National Manufacturing Policy and monitor its functioning regularly.

The board, to be set up under commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma, would also ensure its operation through proper coordination between central ministries and state governments. It will have representatives from all the key ministries as its members.

Besides the board, a manufacturing policy review mechanism would also be established to supervise effective working of the policy guidelines and norms on a regular basis, senior officials of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) told Business Standard. The issue was discussed at an inter-ministerial meeting, chaired by principal secretary to the prime minister, T K A Nair, on June 28.

All state industry ministers would meet twice a year to ensure the smooth functioning of the policy by reviewing the glitches they might face while implementing it.

This would make sure that all states were on the same platform of giving greater focus to increase manufacturing, an official said.

“The policy is going to have far-reaching implications for all the sectors of the economy and not only manufacturing. Hence, it is important to have a sort of monitoring body that looks at all the issues. Moreover, with land and environment emerging as some of the major problems for the industry, it would help if there was a specific body to approach. The government should announce the policy quickly,” said Jyotirmoy Jain, advisor, Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

The government has decided to come out with a new manufacturing policy, with the objective of increasing the share of manufacturing in the gross domestic product to 25 per cent from 16 per cent.

The issue had been under consideration ever since DIPP issued a discussion paper in March 2009 on the need to have an overarching manufacturing policy, after which the National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council issued a draft national manufacturing policy. The Planning Commission had also prepared a National Manufacturing Plan.

Despite several rounds of discussion, nothing concrete has happened due to differences among ministries over the proposed creation of the National Investment and Manufacturing Zones that might require huge tracts of land to set up industries.