Role of Industry in Atmanirbhar Bharat: RSTV - Big Picture

Rajya Sabha TV programs and discussions are very insightful and informative from a UPSC perspective. In this article, we provide a gist of the RSTV Big Picture debate on the role of industry in Atmanirbhar Bharat. This topic is important for the economy section under the UPSC syllabus.

Role of Industry in Atmanirbhar Bharat:- Download PDF Here

Anchor:

Vishal Dahiya

Participants:

1. A.K. Bhattacharya, Editorial Director, Business Standard.
2. Parag Sharma, Vice Chairman, National Committee of CII on Atmanirbhar Bharat

Context:

Recently, while addressing the annual summit of the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), the Prime Minister clearly pointed out the important role that the industry has to play in the Atmanirbhar Bharat campaign. He further described what the government has done in the past few years in ensuring that the industry does get a lot of push in terms of the policy decisions and interventions, be it the tax issues or the ease of doing business and several other aspects.

Atmanirbhar Bharat – Overview

Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan or the Self-reliant India campaign is the vision of the new India envisaged by the Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi. He gave a clarion call on 12th May 2020 and announced a special and comprehensive economic package of INR 20 lakh crores – equivalent to 10% of India’s GDP – to fight the COVID-19 pandemic in India. 

The aim is to make the country and its citizens independent and self-reliant in all spheres. He further outlined five pillars of Atmanirbhar Bharat – Economy, Infrastructure, System, Vibrant Demography and Demand. The Finance Minister further announced reforms and enablers across seven sectors under the campaign. The government took several bold reforms such as Supply Chain Reforms for Agriculture, Rational Tax Systems, Simple & Clear Laws, Capable Human Resource and Strong Financial System.

Key Highlights of the Address

In his address, the PM sounded very positive, confident and hopeful of the way the industry should be responding to the initiatives taken by the government. Some of the key points he discussed are:

1. How the new India is going to rise based on new opportunities offered by the industry for which there are a lot of policy initiatives, new emerging situations and opportunities present that the new India has to grab in the shape of Indian industry and trade. 
2. He redefined the idea of Made in India and stressed that “Making in India” is not necessarily Made by India in a sense that any foreign company which comes to India and produces something is also part of Made in India. Therefore, he welcomed the FDI and FPI in a big way, to play a major role in the campaign.
3. Ease of doing business was discussed in the light of undoing the wrongs of the past in terms of the Retrospective Taxation Amendment Bill being passed.
4. The pace of start-ups and about how 60 unicorns were born in India, one-third of which were created and came to light during the pandemic times.
5. Agricultural Reforms was another area discussed in terms of being overlooked till now and the dire need of it to make Indian agriculture connected to the global market with the help of the government’s initiatives.

Initiatives in the industry sector for Make in India

For the Atmanirbhar Bharat campaign, the government has done the majority of its part in terms of the initiatives for industries and now it’s the industry’s turn to pick it from here. For example, in the solar sector, there was a long-pending issue that we had to import most of the solar modules from China and the industry was demanding for a right impetus to make it in India only. Therefore, the government decided to impose 40% Basic Customs Duty (BCD) on solar modules and 25% on solar cells from 1 April 2022, in a move to make imports costlier and encourage local manufacturing. A sufficient amount of time has been given to all the stakeholders to adapt to the new regime and further, the demands being created in India, almost 10-15 GW solar bids are coming every year. 

Also read: National Solar Mission

Growth of new start-ups even during pandemic shows the way 

Since its launch on 16th January 2016, the Startup India Initiative rolled out several programs with the objective of supporting entrepreneurs, building a robust startup ecosystem and transforming India into a country of job creators instead of job seekers. The boost in terms of the start-up ecosystem and entrepreneurship in the pandemic times has really been observed. In fact, out of the 60 start-up unicorns, about 21 have come up during the pandemic years and it speaks for itself, especially in the IT and ITES sectors. The tariff reduction based strategy for making our industry competitive has been in the scheme of things for the government, although it may not work for every sector and industry and modifications may be required here and there. We also need to keep in mind the international competition, customer choice for a particular product and demand.  Moreover, in terms of availability of funds the conditions worldwide are favourable to raise capital, due to low LIBOR and G-sec rates and good return on investment from the industry. 

Role of Agri-industry in Atmanirbhar Bharat

When we talk about agriculture the agri-industry is inherently included in it, though not expressed explicitly most of the time. The understanding of the vital role of this sector in the Atmanirbhar Bharat campaign can be gauged by the government choosing to raise the issue at the industry annual body meeting. Greater synergy between the corporate sector and Indian agriculture has been emphasised for making it more competitive and connected to the global markets. Time has come to stop seeing corporate entry into the agriculture sector as an exploitative phenomenon and the recent farm laws were passed keeping these in view. More investments and the latest technology in terms of irrigation to storage are needed and this gives the scope for the industry leaders to come forward. 

Way forward – Industry needs to work hand in hand with the government 

It is time for the industry to take up new opportunities, tackle new challenges and work in sync with the government to realise the goal of self-reliance. For this, the short term impetus given by the government in terms of tariff protection and subsidies to the domestic industries will not last for long and we have to look for long term export options while being globally competitive. Another element in this regard is the regulatory framework and consensus between the centre and the states. A certain degree of long term policy and regulatory regime, labour and capital market reforms devoid of sudden surprises is required for an ecosystem of growth to occur.

Read all the RSTV articles in the link.