The contribution of industry and services would be paramount for bringing India’s quest of leapfrogging into the US$10 trillion economy by 2030 into fruition. This was stated by Mr Subhash Chandra Garg, Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance during the Session on How to Make it Easy to do Business Sector’ at the Confederation of Indian Industry’s (CII) Annual Session 2018: Building a Better India Together: Responsible, Inclusive & Ahead in New Delhi today.
Elaborating on the subject, Mr Garg highlighted the importance of issues such as improving the ease of doing business, creating and nurturing a stable macroeconomic environment; provision of adequate resources for the private sector, provision of capital and finance to industry and facilitate skill development and simplifying labour laws to realise our latent potential.
Mr Garg eluded that the government has effected structural changes to transform the economy with lndmark initiatives such as as implementaion of GST, Bankrupcy code, digitisation, aadhar, containing fiscal deficit, liberalising FPI and FDI regime, among others. Besides, it is taking initiatives to bring new hybrid instruments and is planning to bring out Overseas Investment Policy Bill to help Industry invest abroad.
Reflecting similar sentiments, Mr Mr Ramesh Abhishek, Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) stated that the Prime Minister has identified Ease of Doing Business as an important priority of the Government.
According to Mr Abhishek, the Central and State Governments have undertaken several initiatives to facilitate ease of doing business. This includes effecting 14,000 state level reforms, streamlining of procedures, encouraging digitisation and online registrations, among others. Elaborating further on facilitating ease of doing business, steps such as doing away with the requirement of PAN card for company incorporation, fast tracking export and import procedures, introduction of Bankruptcy Code, creating forums for investor protection in the States, among others would go a long way to make India an attractive destination for business.
Speaking at the same session, C.K. Mishra, Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change highlighted that when it comes to environment, the world sees India as a responsible country.
Remarking on the method by which this could be achieved, he said that both government and industry would need to do two things, “be responsible, and be responsive.” While the government is doing its bit, industry too needs to be adaptable.
“From 614 days in 2014, environment clearance times have reduced to 112 days as of March 2018 according to latest reports, and we are aiming for 100 days or less by the end of this month.” he said noting that in recent times Environment Ministry has done many things to make things much simpler.
“However,” he noted, “not everything in environment related matters can have a mitigating aspect. There needs to be some level of adaption by industry as well.”
Dr.K P Krishnan, Secretary, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship noted that there is a twin problem in the skilling ecosystem viz with regard to scale wherein the demand for skilled labour exceeds supply and the low employability of the products of our skill ecosystem.
He mentioned five things that must be done to improve the skill ecosystem where industry plays an important role. Firstly, the private sector must be more articulate about the demand for skilled labour. This requires more participation in the governments’ Sectoral Skills Committees. Secondly, we must find ways that labour is trained by industry, and certified by industry, so that labour can be tailored to industry’s requirements. Thirdly, industry should ensure that skilled workers get a skill wage premium when they work for industry. Fourthly, and importantly, government and industry must together make the apprenticeship system work and fifthly, there is need is greater partnership between government and industry to fill the skills gap.
Ms Shobana Kamineni, President, CII spoke about the industry initiatives such as simplifying land acquisition and labour laws, better coordination between centre and states to facilitate skill development, effective single window clearance, third party certification among others to improve investment climate in the country.
Mr Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII dwelt on the need for improving the eco system and making the environment conducive for industry to do business.
8 April 2018
New Delhi