Foundry industry seeks Rs 20,000 cr Tech Fund

The Indian foundry industry, which is looking at doubling annual castings production to about 20 million tonnes by 2020, has urged the central government to set up a Technology Upgradation Fund (TUF) with a corpus of Rs 20,000 crore to help modernise the sector.

The Institute of Indian Foundrymen (IIF), has had discussion with the Planning Commission in this regard and a formal proposal would be submitted to the government through the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), H Sundara Murthy, president, IIF,said.

“We have already discussed the issue with Planning Commission member Arun Maira in this regard and he has suggested us to submit one common proposal through the CII and IIF has already given its proposal to the apex industry body, which will be forwarded to the plan panel shortly,” he told Business Standard.

 

The proposed fund would be mainly used for upgradation of technology, capacity expansion, greenfield development and energy conservation among others. The Indian foundry industry, he said, was facing several challenges like poor supply of quality power.