Govt to unveil a National Chemical Policy soon

It is also planning to set up 70 more plastic engineering institutes in the next three years

The government will soon come out with a National Chemical Policy to provide an enabling environment and infrastructure and duty structure for the industry, Union Fertiliser Minister Ananth Kumar today said.

"We have taken all the industry inputs, it (chemcial policy) has been circulated to various ministries. We are getting comments and finally, the Cabinet will decide and promulgate the first-ever national chemical policy of the country since Independence," Kumar said at an Assocham event here.

That apart, the government is planning to set up 70 more plastic engineering institutes in the next three years to meet growing demand for engineers in the country.

At present, there are 23 Central Institutes of Plastics Engineering and Technology (CIPET), and the government has already sanctioned 10 more.

The minister pegged the requirement of plastic engineers at over 4 lakh in the country while the availability is hardly 45,000 per year.

"We are going to add 70 centres in the next three years so that we can at least increase the number of plastics technicians from these institutes by five times," Kumar said.

Emphasising on the need for private sector participation in development of human resources for the chemical industry, Kumar proposed that "CIPET can have an MoU with Assocham on human resources development and I am ready to sign that within the next month".