The Government of India today held a day-long National Workshop on ‘Make in India’ to formulate short term (1 year) and medium term (3-year) sectoral action plans in consultation with Indian industry  and improve the ease of doing business in consultation with Chief Secretaries of States. The effort was to   give a fillip to the manufacturing sector. These actions plans were then presented to the Prime Minister at the concluding session of the workshop.

Inaugurating the workshop, Arun Jaitley, Union Finance Minister, said, “Unless radical steps are taken, the challenges faced by the manufacturing sector will remain, a reality that we all must accept.”

Listing out several imperatives that need to be addressed to get manufacturing going, Mr. Jaitley said the initial barriers for entering into manufacturing need to be lowered or closed, an enabling environment has to be created across the board, the regime for making land available for manufacturing changes, a competitive and stable tax regime ensured, trade facilitation, labor market flexibility, reduction in the cost of capital and expeditious project implementation.

The Finance Minister said that the entire effort was to lower the cost of manufacturing and improve quality, “Otherwise we will become a nation of traders rather than manufacturers”. In this context, two components of the Make in India program – today’s workshop that aims at procedural reforms and then bankers’ retreat convened by the Prime Minister over the weekend to improve liquidity and give greater access to capital to industry – would go a long way in making India a better place to do business.

Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Commerce and Industry, in her statement, pointed out that the workshop would iron out the perceptions between the states and the Centre and also help in resolving inter-ministerial issues to facilitate ease of doing business. A strong manufacturing sector, she said, had the potential to increase growth, entrepreneurship and employment and thereby improve India’s ranking in competitiveness and doing business measure.   

The national workshop took a close at various sectors of the economy. FICCI was the partner industry association for Oil & Gas, Capital Goods, Pharmaceuticals & Biotech, Food Processing, Leather & Leather Products, Gems & Jewellery, Tourism , Media & Entertainment, ICTE Manufacturing, Textile & Apparels and MSME. For Chemicals & Petrochemicals, Basic Metals & Cement, Automobiles & Auto Components, Aerospace & Defence, Railways, Energy and Aviation & Shipping, CII was the partner  association. It was also the industry partner for the State sessions. The sectoral sessions were chaired by the secretaries of the ministries concerned.

Narendra Singh Tomar, Union Minister of Mines, Steel and Labour & Employment, said that the Prime Minister’s Make in India campaign was aimed at bringing all stakeholders together to make the country business and industry-friendly and, in turn, attract domestic as well as foreign investment flows into the country.

Ajit Seth, Cabinet Secretary, underlined the need to create an atmosphere where investment becomes the main driver of economic growth. The workshop, he said, seeks to create a roadmap to be implemented in the short and medium term to boost manufacturing.   

Dr.Jyotsna Suri, President of FICCI, said emphatically that “We are entrepreneurial by nature; give us a conducive environment, a rational tax regime and capital at a reasonable cost and just see how we unleash the lion of the Make in India program.” 

Ajay Shriram, President of CII, described the workshop as unique and unprecedented as it brought all stakeholders to offer suggestions for an actionable agenda for making the Make in India program a success. He said the program is transformational for manufacturing and beyond.

Amitabh Kant, Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) moderated the inaugural session and Mr. Shatrughna Singh, Additional Secretary, DIPP gave a vote of thanks address.