Govt Likely To Launch National Manufacturing Mission To Uplift Industry
This move of government will address regional and gender imbalances, striving for global competitiveness and innovation to control and ensure things are done to kick manufacturing to a higher level in India, a top government official said on Friday.
New Delhi: In order to boost India’s manufacturing sector with a powerful governing body, the government is likely to launch the ‘National Manufacturing Mission’ soon. The mission, however, aims to focus on policy support, infrastructure development, and skill enhancement to achieve a 25 per cent manufacturing contribution to the economy by 2047. This move of government will address regional and gender imbalances, striving for global competitiveness and innovation to control and ensure things are done to kick manufacturing to a higher level in India, a top government official said on Friday.
Addressing an event organised by industry body CII, Niti Aayog chief executive BVR Subrahmanyam said that the transformation of India’s manufacturing sector is essential for India to become a developed nation by 2047 and also take people out of agriculture. “The Aayog is looking at restructuring the entire skilling landscape in India. We are in the final stages of that, probably in a month’s time, it will probably get announced,” Subrahmanyam said at the CII’s summit..
According to the economic survey for the year 2023-24, the Indian agriculture sector provides livelihood to about 42.3 per cent of the population and has a share of 18.2 per cent in the country’s GDP at current prices. “Currently in India, 90 percent of manufacturing activities are happening in 5-6 states. We need manufacturing transformation, which will take people out of agriculture and manufacturing transformation is essential for India to become a developed nation,” the CEO said.
Recently, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said that India plans to increase the share of the manufacturing sector from 12 per cent to 23 per cent over the next two decades. “As the uncertainty in the world today has thrown up a huge opportunity for India, we need to focus on winning sectors. China has placed itself at the heart of the global supply chains, claiming that the share of manufacturing in India’s GDP is only 17 per cent. “Should not India also be a heart of global supply chains?,” he asked.
He also said the mission will have an overarching body which will have the power to give directions, control and ensure things are done to kick manufacturing to a higher level in India. “What we need is a body with teeth, a body which can get things done. So we are looking at how it is to be structured, how it gets that kind of a muscle that it actually gets things done spread across multiple departments,” he added.