In an exclusive interview to The Sunday Guardian, P.K. Taneja, IAS, Additional Chief Secretary, Industries & Mines Department, Government of Gujarat, spoke his mind on a variety of issues. Excerpts:
Q. Gujarat has been a pioneer state in terms of industrial growth. What steps is the government taking to take it further, especially in the context of Prime Minister NarendraModi’s vision of “Make in India”?
A. Gujarat, as you rightly said, boasts of being one of the leading industrialised states in the country.
We in Gujarat believe in inclusive growth which is aligned with the “Make in India” initiative.
In line with the PM’s vision, the state has started focusing on “Make in Gujarat” by aggressively promoting investments in the manufacturing sector and supporting Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) across the state.
Gujarat’s leadership in the manufacturing sector is in a number of sectors like textiles, chemicals and petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, gems and jewellery, engineering, auto and auto ancillaries, among others.
Over the past few years, we have focused on creating an ecosystem that catalyses manufacturing by promoting forward and backward linkages and value addition.
We are now working towards strengthening our foothold in sunshine sectors like aerospace and defence manufacturing, electronic system design and manufacturing (ESDM), biotechnology, agro and food processing, among others.
We have recently announced policies for Biotechnology, Aerospace & Defence, ESDM and other sector incentive policies to attract investments. The policies highlight the state’s intent on making the government pro-active to the needs of a growing industry in different sectors as well as mirror the national focus sectors under the “Make in India” agenda.
Moreover, Dholera SIR has been declared as a National Investment Manufacturing Zone (NIMZ), that will further spur manufacturing activities in the region, offering opportunities in heavy engineering, automotive, aerospace and defence, electronics and high-end technologies.
Also, the MandalBecharaji Special Investment Region (MBSIR) is an upcoming industrial hub in the north- west direction of Ahmedabad spread over an area of 102 sq km. Several companies from sectors like auto and ancillary, engineering, technical textiles, solar and wind equipment manufacturing are setting up units along with Japanese township.
Going further, our focus will be on value-addition and increased efficiency to boost the manufacturing sector’s quality in the state. We desire that Gujarat manufactured products compete with the best across the world.
Q. What will be basic theme of “Vibrant Gujarat 2017”? How do you plan to woo investors from across the globe?
A. We are living in an increasingly global, inter-dependent, connected and converging world today.
So the theme of the upcoming edition (8th) of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit is “Gujarat:Connecting India to the World”.
Today, the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit has become one of the most important business events in India focusing on enhancing economic and trade relations.
In order to engage with the global investor community, there were 12 international delegations led by senior government of Gujarat officers that visited and interacted with the business community in more than 20 countries across different regions and have invited them for the Summit.
This edition of the Summit is expected to be bigger than ever. This is evident from the number of Partner Countries (12) and Partner Organisations (8) for the Summit which is the highest so far and a very enthusiastic response from all of them in facilitating participation of business delegations from their countries.
Several high profile delegations led by Heads of State / Government, Ministers have confirmed their participation. These dignitaries are being accompanied by business leaders from some of the prominent companies of their respective countries.
So, there is a lot of investor interest. We are setting up investor facilitation desks at Mahatma Mandir where officials from both Government of India and Government of Gujarat would be available for investor guidance and query resolution.
Additionally, the Summit will also provide a B2B and B2G platform for meetings, match making, networking and forging new partnerships. The idea is to facilitate the investors and make the entire process of investment easy. Moreover, with our targeted policy incentives and ease of doing business initiatives, I am hopeful that investors would see Gujarat as their preferred investment destination. The state government ensures providing uninterrupted world-class quality power supply to domestic as well as industrial consumers.Labour management, peaceful relations and industry-friendly approach is the base of industrial progress of Gujarat. We will continuously strive towardsfurther enhancing Gujarat’s attractiveness as an investor friendly “destination”.
Q. What steps has the government taken to encourage small industries in the state, since they have a huge potential?
A. MSMEs are an important constituent of the state and national economy and will play a significant role in the ambitious “Make in India” programme to boost domestic manufacturing.
The development of small and medium enterprises in the state has taken place in the form of different industrial clusters.
The approach of cluster-based development has helped in improving cost competitiveness of the industries by way of creating common facilities, developing market centers, brand names and promotion of skill.
I would like to highlight here that some of the Gujarat-based MSMEs are today part of the global supply-chain. Jaivel Aerospace, an MSME based out of Rajkot, with an office in UK, is providing engineering, tooling and component businesses to 100 aerospace clients, including industry giants such as Airbus, Rolls Royce, Boeing etc. To promote the MSMEs in a broader way, the state government has established MSMEs facilitation/ help desks in four cities — Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat and Rajkot. These desks provide guidance and information on various schemes of the state and central government and also offer assistance in market linkages for industrial set-up and channels for availability of financial assistance to the interested investors.
The state government is also providing assistance for women entrepreneurs. The state has developed Industrial Parks exclusively for women entrepreneurs.
In addition to all these initiatives, we are also setting up skill upgradation centers across the state to create industry responsive and readily employable manpower for the need of MSMEs to raise their quality levels further and focus on Zero Defect, Zero Effect production process.
Q. Skill development is a key component of industrialisation. Is there any plan to link the Centre’s skill development initiatives with the state’s industrial policy to improve productivity?
A. Aligning to the flagship “Skill India” initiative of the Prime Minster, the state government has taken many steps to enhance the skills of the people to make them more employable.
The Government of Gujarat is strengthening the Gujarat Skill Development Mission (GSDM) to cover all skilling initiatives under one umbrella in line with the national vision.
The majority of the state’s policies have a clear focus on the sector-specific skill development and accordingly, the certifications / trainings have been incentivised.
A conducive environment has been established for skilling with initiatives such as Craftsmen Training Scheme (CTS), Apprentice Training Scheme (ATS), KaushalyaVardhanKendras (KVKs), Skill University, Skill Certification, eMPEX-b, Industrial KVKs (i-KVKs), Flexi MoUs etc. The KaushalyaVardhan Kendra (KVK) model has got national recognition and is being implemented by many states.
Recognising the need for technological up-gradation in skills, through eMPOWER, computer and IT training is imparted to the youth in each district.
Along with these, the government has also focused on narrowing the demand-supply gap of skilled manpower through PPP projects. To increase the availability of skilled workforce, the Directorate of Employment and Training has ventured into more than 40 Flexi MoUs with various renowned companies like L&T Ltd., Eicher Motors, Toyota Kirloskar (India) Ltd., Siemens India Ltd., Sintex Limited, Pidilite Industries, etc.
Maruti Suzuki has recently announced setting up an Industrial Training Institute in Mehsana, Gujarat, called the Japan-India Institute of Manufacturing (JIM). This institute is expected to start its first batch from August 2017. (This is part of the Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) signed in Tokyo between the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry).
I would also like to share that the Government of India has decided to establish Mahatma Gandhi National Institute of Skill Development& Entrepreneurship in Gujarat in partnership with the state government and industries. We have also initiated the process for setting up four regional state-of-the-art Multi Skill Training Institutes specialised in the areas of fabrication, automobiles, high-end manufacturing technology and other new sectors for skilling, testing, certification and research
We are working towards enhancing the quality of sector-specific manpower by promoting greater involvement from the private sector by incentivising the investments.
Q. The Centre recently announced its decision to lift the moratorium ban on setting up new units in Ankleshwar-Panoli and Vatva industrial units. How will it impact the industrialisation in Gujarat?
A. The decision to lift the moratorium ban on setting up of new industrial units in Ankleshwar-Panoli, Vapi and Vatvahas been long awaited.
This is definitely expected to boost the investments in these regions, as they house pharmaceutical companies, dyes and pigments makers, chemicals and processing players, etc. As per estimates, nearly Rs 22,000 crore worth of investments were stalled in these units. A further investment of more than Rs 10,000 crore is also expected in pharmaceuticals and chemicals sectors due to this lift.
The state government and industries in the region of Ankleshwar-Panoli, Vapi and Vatva together have decided to draw an action plan to maintain environment standards in the region.
Q. How ready is the industries in Gujarat to make the transition from cash to digital payment, as espoused by Prime Minister Narendra Modi?
A. The state government has planned to organise awareness programme and training seminars. One must accept the positive role that technology plays in helping shape a better world.
Gujarat is determined and is spearheading the vision of a Digital Economy, the dream of our Prime Minister by encouraging and guiding citizens about digital banking.
With a view to making comprehensive use of digital payments in the state, we have started a people’s awareness campaign through satellite technology (E-Gram network through BISAG) up to rural areas to apprise them about the benefits associated with cashless payment and digital banking.
In fact, you may probably know that India’s first digital village was Akodara in Sabarkantha district in Gujarat, where services ranging from cashless banking to digitised school teaching was completed in 2015 in support with ICICI Bank.
The villagers receive SMSs in Gujarati for their transactions as well as get a host of other digital facilities like e-health, e-milk producer group, wi-fi connectivity and schools with digital black boards in the village.This model is being replicated to transform 100 villages into “ICICI Digital Villages” across the country.
The industries in Gujarat have themselves started to educate their employees regarding the same.
Just to quote an example, Century Textiles and Industries Ltd. organised a five-day Digital India workshop on cashless transaction from 13-17 December at Birla Century Plant, Jhagadia, Bharuch in Gujarat. The workshop was organised in collaboration with the State Bank of India and the HDFC Bank. This Digital India workshop was to empower workers to make cashless money transactions using electronic devices and channels. This workshop was the first of its kind organised in the Indian textile industry.
Future growth will depend on how fast we can adapt our existing processes to changing parameters. And technology will be a critical part of that adaptation for of all our endeavours going forward.
