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Journalism of Courage
On a day the Union Cabinet moved an ordinance for amending some of the restrictive clauses in the land acquisition law, Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured industry that his government “is now ready to change rules and laws, and speed up processes.”
Speaking after the day-long workshop on government’s manufacturing campaign Make in India, Modi called for making a globally recognised ‘Brand India’ famous for zero defect, zero effect, a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office said.
“The Prime Minister said he wished to change the ABCD culture of the government — Avoid, Bypass. Confuse, Delay and change it to the ROAD to success – Responsibility. Ownership. Accountability. Discipline,” the statement said adding that the government is working on breaking down the silos in various departments.
The day-long workshop had 18 sessions on sectors including oil and gas, capital goods, pharmaceuticals and biotech, food processing, leather and leather products, gems and jewellery, tourism, media and entertainment, chemicals and petrochemicals, automobiles, aerospace and defence and railways among others and was attended by over 1,000 participants from across the industry and senior state and central government officials. After the interaction with the industries, secretaries gave short presentations to the Prime Minister, detailing the measures achievable in one and three years.
Earlier during the day, while inaugurating the workshop, finance minister Arun Jaitley assured industry of resolving issues plaguing the manufacturing sector including removing the entry barriers, bringing down the cost of capital and ensuring a globally-competitive taxation regime for the businesses to grow.
“Manufacturing sector remains a challenge and unless radical steps are taken, it will continue to be a challenge. Manufacturing is where jobs are … We have to set our house in order … Entry point itself has to be eased and initial barriers have to be lowered or perhaps removed while an enabling environment has to be provided,” Jaitley said.
He added that India cannot afford to have polices “which rotationally change and half way through our business we find that there is a different policy from what we had planned”.
The government is working on addressing issues including lack of labour flexibility, trade facilitation, stability of policy, robust IPR regime, lack of skilled manpower, project implementation, ease of doing business and providing a competitive tax regime. Stressing on the need to improve domestic manufacturing at low cost with quality products, the minister said that by losing out on these two components, there is a danger of the country becoming a “nation of of traders rather than the nation of manufacturers”.
He also acknowledged the need to ensure liquidity in the markets and said that the success of bankers’ retreat with Prime Minister Narendra Modi later this week and the ‘Make In India’ campaign will push the manufacturing sector. Modi is meeting bankers on January 2-3 in Pune to chalk out a blue print of reform for the banking sector.
