Press Information Bureau

Government of India

Ministry of Commerce & Industry

15-March-2017 16:19 IST

The Government is implementing Integrated Development of Leather Sector (IDLS) sub-scheme as part of the Indian Leather Development Plan (ILDP). This has significantly contributed to capacity development in the labour intensive leather sector which has a larger scope for providing employment to socially and economically weaker sections of the society and women. Further, Stand-up India Scheme is implemented with an objective to facilitate bank loans between ₹ 10 lakh and ₹ 1 crore to at least one Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe and at least one women borrower per bank branch for setting up Greenfield enterprises.

Tax incentives are provided under section 80JJAA of the Income Tax Act on additional employment in manufacturing sector. In addition, the Government has taken a number of measures to promote domestic manufacturing in the country in order to generate more employment opportunities in this sector. This, inter alia, include simplification and rationalization of the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Policy, building  of industrial corridors, taking proactive steps to ease doing business environment in the country,  launch of ‘Make in India’ initiative in 2014.  One of the objectives of ‘Make in India’ is to increase the share of manufacturing in the country’s Gross Domestic Product from 16% to 25% by 2022 and to create 100 million additional jobs by 2022 in this sector. The focus sectors under ‘Make in India’ initiative inter-alia include employment-intensive industries like textiles and garments, leather and footwear, gems and jewellery and food processing industries. Further, the Government also proactively identifies and addresses instances of inverted duty structure, in consultation with industry, in such cases where the import duty on finished products are lower than that of the inputs for the finished products. Such correction of duty inversion provides level playing field to the domestic industries by encouraging domestic value addition and discouraging imports of such final products.

This information was given by the Commerce and Industry Minister Smt. NirmalaSitharaman in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.

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MJPS

Tax incentives for additional manufacturing employment encourage hiring alongside schemes promoting manufacturing-led job creation and investment. The Government combines targeted sectoral schemes and fiscal and trade measures to generate manufacturing employment: capacity development through the Integrated Development of Leather Sector and credit facilitation under Stand-up India, coupled with Section 80JJAA tax incentives for additional employment. Structural reforms-FDI policy rationalisation, industrial corridors, ease of doing business initiatives, and the Make in India strategy-seek to raise manufacturing's GDP share and job creation. Corrections to inverted duty structure are pursued to protect domestic value addition and competitiveness.