Govt plans to Buy Indian
NEXT STEP Proposed national procurement policy will give special preference to firms making in India
To promote its flagship Make In India programme, the government is proposing its own version of the US’s Buy American policy through a national government procurement policy according to a government official familiar with the plan.
The policy being considered involves purchases of ₹2 lakh crore a year but doesn’t include defence equipment.
Under the proposed policy, the central government will provide special preference to companies producing in India; this could be in the form of a relaxation in turnover and experience conditions as well as price preference in products and services it is buying for its own use.
The purchases could range from mobile phones and computers to stationery and medicines, even steel to aluminium for government and railway projects.
When implemented, the scheme, which is compliant with the norms of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), will incentivise companies to manufacture in India given the scale of government purchases.
The central government estimates that the purchases could be around ₹2 lakh crore a year. That number will grow once state governments, municipal bodies and government educational institutions start doing the same.
A group of secretaries headed by commerce secretary Rita Teaotia made the recommendation earlier this month and the Prime Minister is believed to have signed off on it. The commerce ministry is now giving final touches to the policy after which the expenditure department in the finance ministry will notify it.
“The recommendation to the Prime Minister was that the Make In India policy has to be government-wide and that one of the tools (for this) is government procurement. We have a powerful tool (for this) which is compliant with WTO rules,” added the government official who asked not to be identified.
Under WTO rules, if government is buying for itself and not for commercial purpose, then it may provide preference to domestic products. In the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission case which India lost to the US at the WTO, the country was planning to impose mandatory local content requirements on solar power developers who would sell power on commercial basis. The US follows a similar policy under the Buy American Act, 1933 under which it prefers US-made products for government purchases.
The new e-market platform GEM (Government e-Market), which is used to procure goods and services for the government in a transparent manner will be used to roll out the new policy. “We can emphasise preference for domestic products in government procurements and we can monitor its implementation across ministries through the GEM platform,” the government official said.
Sunil Kant Munjal, chairman, Hero Corporate Services Ltd described the plan as “bold” and said it would help create “100 million jobs”. “It is a big boost for Make in India,” he added.
Both Indian companies as well as multinationals that have been in India for some time and have significant manufacturing facilities in the country would benefit, said Venugopal Dhoot, chairman, Videocon Industries.
“In consumer durables, production is largely happening in Thailand and they get imported here at zero duty. With this move, they will be forced to manufacture them here in order to supply to the government. It seems like the Modi government is standing by its objective of promoting local industry,” he added. The legend is back, 17 years after its first coming. It is still a feature phone, runs the Series 30+ software, has a 2.4-inch colour display, a 2-megapixel camera, FM Radio and a microSD slot. It works on 2.5G networks only, though the Opera Mini web browser is preloaded for basic web browsing. The battery standby time is a month. The nostalgia carries a price tag of $52 (around R3,400). The G6 has a 5.7-inch IPS LCD FullVision display—the FullVision referring to the ever-slimmer bezels around the screen. But what is truly unique is the 18:9 aspect ratio (16:9 is what we generally consider as wide-screen), with a resolution of 2,880x1,440 pixels. It is also the first G-series phone that is water and dust resistant. It will run Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 chip, with 4GB RAM. Prices not announced. The aluminium unibody signals Nokia’s return in the smartphone space. It runs the Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 processor, and have a 3GB RAM and a 5.5-inch display (1920 x 1080). There will be a limited edition glossy Arte Black variant, which will have 64GB storage and 4GB RAM. The standard variant of the 6 (colour options include matte black, silver, blue and copper) will cost $242 (around R16,000), while the Arte Black will cost $315 (around R21,000). The P10 and the P10+ both run Huawei’s Kirin 960 processor—the former gets 4GB RAM, 5.1-inch Full HD display and 64GB storage, while the latter gets 6GB RAM, 5.5-inch Quad HD display and 128GB storage. The new design language looks slick, and so does the new colour options. Huawei continues to partner with Leica, for the 12-megapixel and 20-megapixel dual cameras, and is also using GoPro’s expertise for photo sorting features. Pricing details are awaited.