Key Initiatives to Boost Industrial Performance

Make in India

• The ‘Make in India’ programme has been launched globally on 25th September 2014 which aims at making India a global hub for manufacturing, research & innovation and integral part of the global supply chain.
• This initiative is based on four pillars of New Processes, New Infrastructure, New Sectors and New Mindset.

Startup India

• Startup India is a flagship initiative of the Government of India, intended to build a strong eco-system for nurturing innovation and Startups in the country that will drive sustainable economic growth and generate large scale employment opportunities.
• The Government through this initiative aims to empower Startups to grow through innovation and design.

Ease of Doing Business

• The Government has taken up a series of measures to improve Ease of Doing Business.
• The emphasis has been on simplification and rationalization of the existing rules and introduction of information technology to make governance more efficient and effective.
• The “distance to frontier” (DTF) score measurement used by the World Bank to ascertain the distance between each economy and the best performance in that category has improved for seven of the 10 indicators in the World Bank’s Doing Business report-2017, released in October, 2016.
• States too have been brought on board in the process to expand the coverage of these efforts.

Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy

• In May, 2016, Government for the first time adopted a comprehensive National Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) policy to lay future roadmap for intellectual property.
• This aims to improve Indian intellectual property ecosystem, hopes to create an innovation movement in the country and aspires towards “Creative India; Innovative India”.
• Objective of this policy is to:
  • Increase IPR awareness
  • Stimulate generation of IPRs
  • Have strong and effective IPR laws
  • Modernize and strengthen service-oriented IPR administration
  • Get value for IPRs through commercialization
  • Strengthen enforcement and adjudicatory mechanisms for combating IPR infringements
  • To strengthen and expand human resources, institutions and capacities for teaching, training, research and skill building in IPRs
• A Cell for Intellectual Property Rights Promotion and Management (CIPAM) has been created under the aegis of Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP)for addressing the 7 identified objectives of the Policy.
• An MOU has also been signed with U.K, Singapore and E.U in the field of Intellectual Property Trademark.
• Pendency in awarding patents has also come down from 3 months in 2015-16 to 1 month by the end of Financial Year 2016-17.
• In addition to this, India’s rank in Global Innovative Index has gone up from 81 in 2015 to 66 in 2016.

National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF)

The NIIF is being operationalized by establishing three Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs) under the SEBI Regulations. The proposed corpus of NIIF is Rs. 40,000 Crores (around USD 6 Billion). GOI’s contribution to the AIFs under the NIIF scheme shall be 49% of the total commitment. NIIF has mandate to solicit equity participation from strategic anchor partners, like overseas sovereign/quasi-sovereign/multilateral/bilateral investors.

Functions of NIIF

• Fund raising through suitable instruments including off-shore instruments and attracting anchor investors to participate as partners in NIIF
• Servicing of the investors of NIIF
• Considering and approving candidate companies/institutions/ projects for investments and periodic monitoring of investments
• Investing in the corpus created by Asset Management Companies (AMCs)
• Preparing a shelf of infrastructure projects and providing advisory services

First Investment by the NIIF

National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) has made its First investment on January 22, 2018. NIIF has partnered with DP World to create an investment platform for ports, terminals, transportation and logistics businesses in India. The platform will invest in opportunities in the ports sector, and beyond sea ports into areas such as river ports and transportation, freight corridors, port-led special economic zones, inland container terminals, and logistics infrastructure including cold storage.

‘Operation Khanij Khoj’

The Centre in February 2017 launched ‘Operation Khanij Khoj’ of Geological Survey of India (GSI). The ‘Operation Khanij Khoj’ will be implemented in two selected areas in the country. It is focused on probing for deep seated/concealed mineral deposits. Characterizing India’s geological cover, investigating lithospheric architecture, resolving 4D geodynamic and metallogenic evolution, and detecting and characterizing the distal footprints of ore deposits, would be the main components of this initiative.

The ‘Operation Khanij Khoj’ will target concealed and deep seated mineral deposits. GSI has planned
two projects in (i) Northern parts of Aravallies and Bundelkhand craton; (ii) Western and Eastern Dharwad cratons.

GSI has initially identified 100 blocks for reconnoitory survey. Once the National Mineral Exploration Policy (NMEP) is approved, these blocks will be put on e-auction for undertaking regional exploration by private companies.

• Mineral exploration in India needs to be done in a proactive and time-bound manner. Government of India has taken several decisions to enable this, and to build exploration capacity in the country.
• Mineral exploration and mining are independent of each other. Former aims to build a comprehensive database of country’s mineral resources, while mining of these resources can be done based on the requirement.
• Exploration by its very nature needs to be done well in advance and not when there is scarcity of minerals.

National Capital Goods Policy

The Union Government in February 2016 unveiled a National Capital Goods Policy to give an impetus to the capital goods sector and a leg up to the Make in India initiative. This is for the first time that a national policy has been framed for the sector. The policy would drive growth for Capital Goods sector, and a part of Government’s commitment to help realise this vision of turning India into a world class hub for Capital Goods.

Objectives

• The policy envisages increasing exports from the current 27% to 40% of production while increasing share of domestic production in India’s demand from 60% to 80%, thus making India a net exporter of capital goods.
• The policy also aims to facilitate improvement in technology depth across sub-sectors, increase skill availability, ensure mandatory standards and promote growth and capacity building of MSMEs.
• The aim of the policy is to create game changing strategies for the capital goods sector. Some of the key issues addressed include Availability of Finance, Raw Material, Innovation and Technology, Productivity, Quality and Environment Friendly Manufacturing Practices, Promoting Exports and Creating Domestic Demand.

Policy Recommendations

Key policy recommendations include strengthening the existing scheme of the Department Heavy Industry (DHI) on enhancement of competitiveness of Capital Goods Sector by increasing budgetary allocation for increasing scope to further boost global competitiveness in various sub sectors of CG. The aim is to enhance the export of Indian made capital goods througha ‘Heavy Industry Export & Market Development Assistance Scheme (HIEMDA)’.

Mining Surveillance System (MSS)

Union Ministry for Power, Coal, New & Renewable Energy and Mines in October, 2016 launched the Mining Surveillance System (MSS).

What is MSS?

• MSS is a satellite-based monitoring system which aims to establish a regime of responsive mineral administration, through public participation, by curbing instances of illegal mining activity through automatic remote sensing detection technology.
• Ministry of Mines, through Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM), has developed the MSS, in coordination with Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Applications and Geo-informatics (BISAG), Gandhinagar and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY), to use space technology for curbing illegal mining activity in the country.
• Developed under the Digital India Programme, MSS is one of the first such surveillance systems developed in the world using space technology.

Why it has been Launched?

• The current system of monitoring of illegal mining activity is based on local complaints and unconfirmed information.
• There is no robust mechanism to monitor the action taken on such complaints.

What Purposes will it Serve?

• In the MSS, the Khasra maps of the mining leases have been geo-referenced. The geo-referenced mining leases are superimposed on the latest satellite remote sensing scenes obtained from CARTOSAT & USGS.
• The system checks a region of 500 meters around the existing mining lease boundary to search for any unusual activity which is likely to be illegal mining. Any discrepancy if found is flagged-off as a trigger.
• Automatic software leveraging image processing technology will generate automatic triggers of unauthorized activities.
• These triggers will be studied at a Remote Sensing Control Centre of IBM and then transmitted to the district level mining officials for field verification.
• A check for illegality in operation in conducted and reported back using a mobile app.
• A user-friendly mobile app has been created which can be used by these officials to submit compliance reports of their inspections.
• The mobile app also aims to establish a participative monitoring system where the citizens also can use this app and report unusual mining activity.
• The advantages of remote sensing technology based monitoring system are that:
  • It is Transparent (Public will be provided an access to the system)
  • Bias-free and Independent (The system has no human interference)
  • Deterrence Effect (‘Eyes watching from the sky’)
  • Quicker Response and Action (The mining areas will be monitored regularly. Sensitive areas will be monitored more frequently)
  • Effective Follow-up (action taken on triggers will be followed-up at various levels like DMG, State Mining Secretary, State Office and Headquarters Office of IBM and Ministry of Mines, GoI)

National Mineral Exploration Policy

The Union Cabinet approved the National Mineral Exploration Policy on June 29, 2016. The key features of the Policy include:

Auctions

• The Ministry of Mines will carry out the auctioning of the identified exploration blocks for exploration by the private sector.
• In case the exploration leads to discovery of an auctionable resource, the explorer will receive a share of the revenue obtained from the further auction of such a block.
• If the explorer agency does not discover any auctionable resource, the exploration expenditure will be reimbursed on a normative cost basis (estimation of costs based on certain level of efficiencies).

National Geoscientific Data Repository

• A National Geoscientific Data Repository is proposed to be set up.
• It will collate all baseline and mineral exploration information generated by various central and state government agencies, etc. and also maintain these on the geospatial database.
• The creation of baseline geoscientific data will be available for open dissemination and will be available free of charge.

Initiative to Examine Resources

• The government will launch a special initiative to examine deep seated mineral deposits in the country.
• This will be conducted in collaboration with institutions including the National Geophysical Research Institute, and the proposed National Centre for Mineral Targeting.
• An initial amount of Rs 2,116 crore will be required over 5 years for the implementation of the Policy.
• This amount would be required over and above the annual plan budget of the Geological Survey of India (responsible for assessing mineral resources in the country, etc.).