Govt identifies 'champion sectors' for hand-holding of various investments: Official

The government has identified "champion sectors" including leather, gems and jewellery, renewable energy, pharma and textiles, to provide hand-holding for investors with a focus on improving India's manufacturing capabilities, a top official said.

Asserting that India must regain its rightful place in manufacturing, Secretary in the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) Guruprasad Mohapatra said the whole world not only India has ceded the manufacturing space to a particular geography, in an apparent reference to China.

We need to focus a lot of domestic manufacturing, not only how to strengthen it, but how to encourage our domestic investors, Mohapatra said.

"We have identified a few champion sectors," the DPIIT Secretary said, adding that these include leather, gems and jewellery, solar, renewables, pharmaceutical and textiles.

I expect that you would see a lot of policy announcements, a lot of hand-holding, a lot of championing of various investments in the coming months, Mohapatra observed.

He also emphasised upon having "a lot of policy predictability in India so that policies are not changed from budget to budget or from event to event".

The DPIIT Secretary shared that the way a corporate or an investor engages with various state government departments or central government departments will be simplified and expedited.

Addressing a webinar organised by Assocham on Saturday, he said the immediate task was to "regain where we left prior to when the lockdown started".

The DPIIT functions under the Union Commerce and Industry Ministry.