Ministries including heavy industry, shipping and information technology have prepared proposals to give a fillip to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Make in India campaign. Official sources said that while the department of heavy industry (DHI) has made a case for providing subsidies to manufacturers of battery-operated solar cars, infrastructure creation and R&D, the shipping ministry has proposed tax benefits to domestic players for shipyard building.
“The DHI is focusing on linking its electric mobility initiative and the efforts on national renewable energy generation. This can be achieved by incentivising manufacturers and this can be done by creating a fund for providing subsidies,” the official said.
The national mission for electric mobility (NMEM) scheme, launched by the UPA in 2013, estimates, by 2020, there will be a demand for around 6-7 million units. Further, the shipping ministry, the official said, has prepared a plan to boost domestic shipping industry by giving “tax breaks” for shipyard building.
“The ministry also wants to make it compulsory to import LNG on ships bearing Indian flags. This will create service opportunities for Indian players,” the official said. The business model will shift from cost-insurance-freight (CIF) to free on board (FOB) and Indian ships and insurers will be able to reap the benefits hitherto enjoyed by foreign vessel owners. “Announcements for some sops for these industries may also be made in the Budget 2015-16,” the official said.
The information technology department wants “duty restructuring” for electronic sector, especially semi-conductors, another official said. Last year, telecom and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had said that India’s import bill of electronic goods, which is likely to touch $ 400 billion by 2020 from the current $ 100 billion every year, may surpass that of fuel oil import bill.
In order to bring down the import, the government has already notified 50 brownfield electronics manufacturing clusters and given in-principle go-head to seven greenfield clusters across 13 states for domestic manufacturing.
