Sharma To Push National Mfg Policy.

Commerce & industry minister is set to push the National Manufacturing Policy that has been in the making for 18 months, with labour and environment ministries over the next few days.

The three ministries are seen to be blocking the policy which proposes to simply the procedure in designated areas. The draft policy had suggested that the procedures be simplified in several ministries, including labour and environment where inspector raj and a plethora of approvals make life difficult for companies.

While Sharma is due to meet newly-appointed environment and forest minister Jayanthi Natrajan on Friday and labour minister Malikarjun Kharge next week. The two ministries are unwilling to ease norms despite the issue being raised at the level of the Prime Minister.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who met all ministers on the manufacturing policy last month had instructed his principal secretary TKA Nair to resolve differences but even that does not seem to have done the trick. During a meeting with members from industry chambers Ficci, Sharma said panel of secretaries headed by Nair is fine tuning the policy.

While the industry raised concerns on high cost of credit, investment slow down, skill shortage, high input cost, hurdles in getting various clearances, environmental issues and debottlenecking of logistics, the minister said he was engaged with the finance ministry on finding remedial measures.

Source : timesofindia.indiatimes.com