Sharad Pawar heads GoM on manufacturing

NEW DELHI: Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar will head a group of ministers that will look into inter-ministerial issues in the proposed national manufacturing policy.

The cabinet did not clear the policy, which has an in-principle approval from the prime minister, in its last meeting because of opposition raised by the labour and environment ministries.

Ministers of environment, labour, commerce, law and micro, small and medium enterprises ( MSME) will be the other members of the group.

The opposition to the policy has left the industry ministry miffed. In a letter to the environment ministry, the department of industrial policy and promotion, or DIPP, has questioned the objections raised by the labour and environment ministries when things were settled before the policy was sent to cabinet.

"Most of their demands had been met and provisions for green manufacturing, rain water harvesting and mandatory environment audits giving 25% grant to SMEs for audit expenditure too had been approved," a DIPP official told ET.

The National Manufacturing Policy aims at creating 100 million jobs and taking the share of manufacturing to 25% of the country's GDP by 2020 from the current 15%.