Follow up meeting on ‘Make in India’ campaign on Dec 29

NEW DELHI, Dec 23:  Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a meeting of several stakeholders on December 29 to chalk out a ‘specific action plan’ to implement the ‘Make in India’ programme, which aims at boosting manufacturing sectors.
During the day long workshop, which would be organised by the Commerce and Industry Ministry, senior industry leaders would also participate.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman would address the gathering.
Besides, sectoral discussions will be held with the concerned sectoral industry leaders.
In September, Modi had launched the ‘Make in India’ campaign to attract foreign investors and make the country a global manufacturing hub. As many as 25 sectors, including textiles, automobiles, chemicals, IT and pharmaceuticals have been identified as focus segments under the programme.
Chief secretaries and other senior officials of states would also attend the function.
Sources said a specific action plan is expected to be finalised and a work programme would be chalked out with state governments.
“State government is the main stakeholder for successful implementation of the ‘Make in India’,” they said.
The manufacturing sector now contributes about 16-17 per cent and the government aims to increase it to 25 per cent by 2022.
Dashing hopes of recovery, industrial production contracted by 4.2 per cent in October, the sharpest decline in at least two years, on poor show by manufacturing sector and dip in the output of capital as well as consumer goods.
Manufacturing output, which constitutes over 75 per cent of the index, contracted by 7.6 per cent in October, compared to a dip of 1.3 per cent in the same month a year ago.
For April-October, the sector saw an output growth of 0.7 per cent, compared to a contraction 0.1 per cent in the year-ago period.
Overall, 16 of the 22 industry groups in manufacturing showed negative growth in October. (PTI)