Union Minister Attends Petroleum Forum as Industry Prepares for Massive Local Boost

The Second meeting of Chemicals and Petrochemicals Industry Advisory Forum was held under the chairmanship of Union Minister of Chemicals and Fertilisers DV Sadanand Gowda via video conferencing. The minister of State Mansukh Manaviya and Vice-chairman of the forum, RK Chaturvedi were the other attendees along with officers from the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Department of Commerce, Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals and several representatives of the concerned industries.

The main focus of the mission was to discuss ways for the Industry to be self-reliant after the Prime Minister has launched the Atma Nirbhar Abhiyan. The forum acts as a bridge between the government and the industry where the industry can discuss their problems and the government takes steps to resolve those issues like enhancing the ease of doing business.

The minister said that in 2017 the Indian Chemicals and Petrochemicals Sector was ranked 130 in the world while in the recent rankings it was ranked 63 which is a massive improvement and further said that the sector needs to take advantages of the various relief packages announced by the government to quickly recover from the slump caused by COVID-19.

The Minister also talked about the various reforms being taken by the ministry like making BIS standard mandatory for 19 chemicals and 5 chemicals like Acetone, Pyridine, Sod Tripolyphosphate, Hydrogen Peroxide etc and giving preference to local manufacturers in the procurement of 55 chemicals.

Talking about future measures he said that the Department was working on a revamped Petroleum, Chemicals and Petrochemicals Investment Regions (PCPIR) that would help in growing clusters of these industries. He also said that private players should also increase their R&D expenditure. He also touted the idea that the industry should also focus on being more environmentally friendly by adopting Green Chemistry to minimize wastewater, use of safer solvents to make the industry an environmentally sustainable sector.

Meanwhile, the Minister of State Mansukh Mandaviya stressed that the development of PCPIRs will be helpful in strengthening the manufacturing sector and attracting new investments.