The State Industries Department will focus on facilitating household-based nano industries, which will operate as spokes in a hub-and-spoke business model, thereby generating more employment, Sanjay Kaul, Industries Secretary, has said.
The draft industrial policy, which is currently open for public consultations and will soon be enacted, made a mention of offering certain relaxations and incentives to this segment, he told The Hindu on the sidelines of the Young Entrepreneurs Summit (YES-2017) here on Tuesday. These would not be big manufacturing units, but would make components for final assembly.
Strengthening the public sector would be another focus area. “We have over 50 public sector units within the Industries Department and they are in sectors which we believe could do well. As for the traditional industries, we are keen on reviving the handloom sector and brand it in a big way, for which the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) has been roped in.”
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Roadmap getting ready
NIFT, he said, was preparing a comprehensive roadmap for the revival of the handloom industry covering the entire value chain from design and selection of raw material to brand creation and marketing. “It is a disparate community, which will receive professional guidance in all these and some hand-holding by the government in marketing which could be initially done through Hanveev and Hantex outlets. Modernisation of the handloom equipment in possession of the viewers will happen at the start,” he said.
“On land allotment for businesses, the KSIDC, Kinfra, and DIC (district industries centre) are making available chunks of built-up space and allocation is being streamlined. But the most important thing coming up in the policy is the ease of doing business initiative which has been factored in. To buttress this, there will be the Industrial Facilitation Act that will make it statutory to give clearances in a time-bound manner. Some clearances have been simplified as well,” he said.
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Mr. Kaul said the department had used a two-pronged approach to strengthen the public sector. First, there would be modernisation of processes and machinery, which he said was under way in a big way. Already, professionals with domain knowledge had been selected to helm the public sector units and some industries would be benefited from the price/purchase preference agreements with end-users. Also, funds had been made available to the Public Sector Restructuring and Internal Audit Board for skill upgrade of public sector employees, he said.