After revision of base year of National Accounts from 2004-05 to 2011-12, growth rate of different sectors is measured in terms of growth rate of Gross Value Added (GVA) at Basic Price in that sector. The growth rate of GVA at Basic Price at constant (2011-12) prices in manufacturing during Q4 (January-March) 2014-15, Q1 (April-June) 2015-16 and Q2 (July-September) 2015-16 was 8.4 %, 7.2 % and 9.3 % respectively.

The Government has taken a number of measures including administrative and regulatory, to accelerate the growth of manufacturing sector. For creation of conducive business environment, the Government is constantly simplifying and rationalizing the processes and the procedures for boosting investor sentiment, simplifying the policy and procedures for encouraging Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and correcting the inverted duty structure.

Some of the recent initiatives also include pruning the list of industries that can be considered as defence industries requiring industrial license, two extensions of two years each permitted in the initial validity of three years of the industrial license to take it up to seven years, removal of stipulation of annual capacity in the industrial license, and deregulating the annual capacity for defence items for Industrial License. For defence projects validity of industrial licenses has been increased to 15 years, which can be further increased to 18 years.

With a view to liberalise and simplify the FDI policy, so as to provide ease of doing business in the country leading to larger FDI inflows, the Government has brought in FDI related reforms and liberalisation in a number of major sectors of the economy. Changes introduced in the policy include increase in sectoral limits, bringing more activities under automatic route and easing of conditionalities for foreign investments.

The Government has launched the e-biz Mission Mode Project under the National e-Governance Plan which has simplified procedures and as on date provides 20 Central G2B (Government to Business) services and 16 State/Municipal services, online. The Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) project is under implementation. In addition, the Government has conceptualized Amritsar Kolkata Industrial Corridor, Chennai-Bengaluru Industrial Corridor, Bengaluru Mumbai Economic Corridor and the Vizag-Chennai Industrial Corridor (as the first phase of an East Coast Economic Corridor), and setting up a National Industrial Corridor Development Authority (NICDA) for coordinating and overseeing progress of the various industrial corridors.

The Government has also launched “Make in India” programme with 25 thrust sectors to provide a major push to manufacturing in India. An Investor Facilitation Cell has been created viz ‘Invest India’ to assist, guide, handhold and facilitate investors during the various phases of business life cycle. This Cell provides necessary information on vast range of subjects; such as policies of the Ministries and State Governments, various incentive schemes and opportunities available, to make it easy for the investors to make necessary investment decision. Information on 25 thrust sectors has been put up on ‘Make in India’s web portal (http://www.makeinindia.com) along with details of FDI Policy, National Manufacturing Policy, Intellectual Property Rights and Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor and other National Industrial Corridors.

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.

FDI liberalisation and industrial licence reforms expand ease of doing business and boost manufacturing investment. Measures focus on regulatory liberalisation and facilitation to boost manufacturing: industrial licence reforms (pruning defence items, extending validity, removing annual capacity limits, deregulating defence capacity), liberalisation of FDI policy (higher sectoral limits, expanded automatic route, eased conditionalities), rollout of e-biz G2B services, development of multiple industrial corridors coordinated by a National Industrial Corridor Development Authority, and the 'Make in India' programme with an Investor Facilitation Cell providing sectoral information and investor support.