With the objective of enhancing the share of manufacturing in GDP to 25% and creating 100 million jobs over a decade or so, the Government has notified the National Manufacturing Policy vide a Press Note dated 4th November, 2011 under which specific policy instruments have been conceptualized covering areas such as rationalization and simplification of business regulations, financial and institutional mechanisms for technology development, incentives for SMEs, Special Focus Sectors, etc.

As per the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), the growth of manufacturing sector during the last three years and up to the month of January, 2015 is as under :-

Year/Month	Manufacturing Growth (%)
2011-12	3.0
2012-13	1.3
2013-14	-0.8
2013-14 (April-January)	-0.3
2014-15 (April-January)	1.7
2014-15
April	3.0
May	5.9
Jun	2.9
Jul	-0.3
Aug	-1.1
Sep	2.7
Oct	-5.6
Nov	3.1
Dec	3.8
Jan	3.3

The Government has taken a number of Important steps to gear up the manufacturing sector.  These include (i) creation of an investor facilitation cell (ii) dissemination of information on twenty five priority sectors on ‘Make in India’s web-portal (http://www.Makeinindia.com ) along with details of FDI Policy, National Manufacturing Policy, Intellectual Property Rights, Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor and other National Industrial Corridors (iii) issuance of ordinance to make land acquisition easier for important projects (iv) a number of items taken off the licensing requirement from Defence products’ list, etc. In the budget for 2015-16 measures have been announce to set right the Inverted Duty Structure on a range of items, reduce tax on the labour intensive leather sector and provide impetus to start-ups, venture funds and entrepreneurship.

The Government has also undertaken a series of measures to improve Ease of Doing business in India.  These are:-

(1)   14 Government of India services cutting across Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Employee’s State Insurance Corporation (ESIC), Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), Reserve bank of India and Department of Corporate Affairs have been integrated with the eBiz portal.

(2)   For trading across borders the requirement of forms has been brought down to three.

(3)   A large number of components of Defence Products’ list have been excluded from the purview of Industrial Licensing. 

(4)   Dual use items, having military as well as civilian applications (unless classifieds as defence items) have been excluded froms requirement of Industrial Licence from Defence angle.

(5)   The application process for Industrial Licence and Industrial Entrepreneur’s Memorandum has been made easy by simplifying the form and making the processes online 24x7. 

(6)   The validity period of Industrial Licence and security clearance from Ministry of Home Affairs has been increased. 

(7)   The process of registration with Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation and Employees’ State Insurance Corporation has been made on line and real-time. 

(8)   The process of obtaining environment and forest clearances has been made online. 

(9)   Partial commencement of production is being treated as commencement of production of all the items included in the licence.

(10)  A unified portal for Registration of Units for LIN, Reporting of Inspection, Submission of returns & Grievance Redressal has been launched by the Ministry of Labour & Employment.

(11)  The Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion has advised Ministries and State Governments to simplify and rationalize the regulatory environment through business process reengineering and use of information technology.

This information was given by the Minister of State (Independent Charge) in the Ministry of Commerce & Industry Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.

Ease of Doing Business reforms expand online clearances and simplify licences, reducing regulatory burdens to boost manufacturing growth. Policy measures implement the National Manufacturing Policy and regulatory reforms to expand manufacturing and create jobs by simplifying compliance, digitising licences and registrations, integrating services on an eBiz portal, excluding many defence and dual use items from industrial licensing, treating partial production as commencement, extending licence validity and security clearances, and providing investor facilitation and sectoral incentives to support SMEs, start ups and technology development.