Govt to soon come out with comprehensive capital goods policy

Government will soon come out with a comprehensive capital goods policy to create an ecosystem for a globally competitive sector leveraging concepts such as smart manufacturing, automation and IoT.
"Our policy for capital goods has a lot of components. We are now including all these components to make a comprehensive capital goods policy, which will encourage manufacturing and capital goods in the country," Additional Secretary in Department of Heavy Industries Anshu Prakash told PTI.
At present, there is already a capital goods policy, which is for the period 2015 to 2025. Besides, it also has a 2-year scheme for enhancing competitiveness of the sector, he said.

Speaking on the sidelines of a CII event here, he added the new policy will incorporate all essential elements such as smart manufacturing and Industry 4.0, which are very important in today's highly dynamic business environment.
Industry 4.0, also called fourth industrial revolution, relates to the growing trend of using automation and data analytics as well as increasing demand of Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing in manufacturing technologies.
Prakash said, the government's objective is to create an enabling environment and eco-system so that the vision of 'Make in India' can be achieved much earlier. The new policy will be like an umbrella with all components including intellectual property rights, cyber security, etc.

Without giving a timeline for the (new) policy, the official said: "It is a priority. We have consulted all stakeholders and the policy is in the final stages."

In February this year, the government had come out with a National Capital Goods Policy which envisages increasing exports to 40 per cent of production from the current 27 per cent, while raising the share of domestic production in India's demand to 80 per cent from 60 per cent.
The policy's objective is to increase capital goods from Rs 2,30,000 crore in 2014-15 to Rs 7,50,000 crore in 2025 and raising direct and indirect employment from the current 8.4 million to 30 million.

Earlier, speaking at the CII event, Prakash said, smart manufacturing and Industry 4.0 are an "economic imperative" and for the manufacturing industry a "survival imperative".
"If we need to survive in today's globalised world, we need to think and compete globally," he advised.
Expressing similar views, Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said, in the long-run India needs to think big and penetrate global markets to grow.
"Manufacturing is at the cusp of a big transformational change and there are nine technologies that are driving it -- IoT, bots, cloud, automation, bid data, analytics, etc. India needs to embrace these to grow big," he added.

Entrepreneurs and the manufacturing sector should not just think about the domestic market, but should also look at the global markets and the technologies that are needed to survive in such environment. Besides, the thrust should also be on enhancing the skills of the workforce, Kant said.