National chemical policy in couple of months: Union minister Ananth Kumar

Govt. to set up 70 more CIPET centres; petrochemical complexes in all 16 refineries

With a view to boost chemical sector in the country, the Government of India will come out with a national policy on chemicals in a couple of months, Chemicals & Fertilizers Minister, Mr Ananth Kumar said at an ASSOCHAM event.

Our national policy on chemicals, first ever in independent India is finalised, we have already sent it to the cabinet and I think very soon we are going to have a national chemical policy, which will be having some niche things like national chemical development centre, which is going to promote research and development, said Mr Kumar while inaugurating a national summit on 'Indian Chemical Industry: Challenges & opportunities,' organised by The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM).

We are also going to have one national chemical safety centre, there is a proposal for a national bureau of corrosion control also, said the union minister.

We have taken all the industry inputs, it has been circulated to various ministries, we are getting comments and finally the union cabinet will decide and promulgate the first ever national chemical policy of the country since independence, he added.

I am telling you that in next couple of months it will become a reality and it will be before you, further said Mr Kumar.

Talking about the format of the policy, the union minister said, Enabling the chemical industry, environment, infrastructure and duty structure, these are three basic parameters, therefore, national chemical policy will achieve that.

Considering that only four out of total 16 refineries in the country have petrochemical complexes, Mr Kumar said that government will roll out a policy to have petrochemical complexes in all the refineries.

We will also see that they will not be standalone petrochemical complexes to manufacture the feedstock but there will be further value addition to that, there will be downstream and processing industries and government of India will create them, said the union minister.

Therefore instead of four there will be 16 investment regions and we would be able to milk the entire crude to the last drop, he added.

Highlighting the dearth of workforce, Mr Kumar said We require human resource, capacity building, we require 4.5 lakh plastics engineers every year but we are producing 44,000 only and most of them are going abroad, getting placed before they complete their courses.

The union minister also informed that considering there are only 23 centres under the Central Institute of Plastics Engineering and Technology (CIPET), the government has decided to increase the number of centres to 100 in couple of years.

It is already on the anvil, we have given sanction to 10 more centres in different parts of the country, we are going to add 70 centres in next three years so that we can at least increase the roll out of plastics technicians five times, said Mr Kumar.

Stressing upon the need to enhance private sector participation for development of human resources in the chemical industry, the union minister said, CIPET can have an MoU with ASSOCHAM on human resources development and I am ready to sign that within next month.

He also said that biggest task ahead of the chemical sector is to make India a net exporter of chemicals and petrochemicals.

Our total exports are worth $19 billion and imports are $27 billion, there is a need to reverse this trend, from a net importing country in chemicals and petrochemicals can India become an exporting country, that is the core issue, said Mr Kumar.

He also said that there is a lacuna of systematic and standardised interaction with industry. We are going to hold a government-industry interaction at least two months before the Union Budget to fix an agenda and we will try to implement that agenda for the benefit of the industry.

The union minister also said that growth and development of chemical sector is critical for making India's growth story galloping.

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