The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has approved the ‘Scheme for Enhancement of Competitiveness of the Capital Goods Sector' to boost the Indian economy. This scheme, on its implementation, would attempt to make the Indian capital goods sector globally competitive.
The sub sectors of Capital Goods covered under the scheme are mainly for Machine Tools, Textile Machinery, Construction and Mining Machinery, and Process Plant Machinery. The proposed scheme addresses the issue of technological depth creation in the capital goods sector, besides creating common industrial facility centres.
The Scheme on Enhancement of Competitiveness in the Indian Capital Goods Sector will be implemented in the 12th Plan period and spill over to the 13th Plan period with an estimated outlay of Rs930.96 crore. The Gross Budgetary Support (GBS) from the government for the scheme would be Rs581.22 crore and the balance Rs349.74 crore would be contributed by the stakeholder industries.
The scheme has five components to achieve the desired result in pilot mode -
(i) Creation of ‘Advanced Centres of Excellence' for R&D and Technology Development with National Centres of Excellence in Education and Technology such as the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur and the Central Manufacturing Technology Institute (CMTI), Bangalore.
(ii) Establishment of ‘Integrated Industrial Infrastructure Facilities' popularly known as Machine Tool Parks with a basic objective of making the machine tool sector more competitive by providing an ecosystem for production. Establishment of Machine Tool Parks will cut down logistic cost substantially and would be a step forward in making the sector cost effective, having enhanced export capability and favourable for attracting more investment. The park would be established by a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) formed by local industries, industry associations, financial institutions, Central / State Governments, R&D Institutions, etc.
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