(iii) ‘Common Engineering Facility Centre' for Textile Machinery is to be set up with active participation of the local industry and the industry association, which in turn would improve facilitation to the users along with visibility. The Common Engineering Facility that can be provided within such set ups are common foundry, common heat treatment, testing laboratories, design center, common prototyping, general and specific machinery, etc. The facility would enable textile machinery and other capital goods manufacturers to develop capital goods to meet the large requirements and improve capacity utilization, thereby reducing the variable cost of operation. This would also be established by a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) formed by local industries, industry associations, financial institutions, Central/State Governments, R&D Institutions, etc.
(iv) ‘Testing and Certification Centre' for earth moving machineries in view of the fact that it is soon going to be made a mandatory requirement and at present there is no test facility to test earthmoving machinery like that in the automobile industry. By setting up of the test centre, the import of second hand and outdated machinery could be restricted through mandatory testing and certification.
In addition, the centre would facilitate evaluating the performance, statutory and regulatory requirements of construction and mining machinery and equipment. The setting up of Test and Certification Centre for Earthmoving Machinery will be done by the SPV specifically created by the Department of Heavy Industry with the approval of the Cabinet. After approval of the Scheme, a separate proposal for information of SPV for implementation of this particular scheme component will be sent to the Cabinet for approval.
(v) The creation of a ‘Technology Acquisition Fund' under the Technology ‘Acquisition Fund Programme (TAFP)' in order to help the Capital Goods Industry to acquire and assimilate specific technologies, for achieving global standards and competitiveness within a short period of time.
The TAFP will provide financial assistance to Indian capital goods industry to facilitate acquisition of strategic and relevant technologies, and also development of technologies through contract route, in-house route or through joint route of contract and in-house. The Fund can extend partial support to industry to enhance their technology level, for achieving superior product quality / functionality, production capacity, safety and sustainability performance. This programme would bridge the technology gaps identified in the 12th Plan Working Group Report on ‘Capital Goods and Engineering Sector'.
Background
The Capital Goods value added contributes a fairly constant proportion of 9-12 percent of the total manufacturing value added. This establishes that manufacturing is the key end-user sector of Capital Goods and drives the performance of the latter. Another key determinant of the demand for Capital Goods is the gross investment undertaken in the economy.
The apparent consumption of Capital Goods constitutes a constant share of 17-21 percent of the total Gross Domestic investment in the country. The investments in the Capital Goods sector have declined with the decline in the relative profitability of the Capital Goods sector with respect to other sectors. The capital goods sector determines global competitiveness of the manufacturing sector by being a vehicle of technology.
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