Govt setting up 20 new industrial townships nationwide: Piyush Goyal

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Thursday that the government is setting up 20 new industrial townships across the country, one of which has already started in Noida.

“A lot is happening, and with the active participation of industry, we can achieve much more and much faster. As a country, we need a change in mindset to recognise high quality and sustainability as our calling card as we engage with the world,” Goyal said at the Bhart@100 Summit organised by the business chamber Assocham.

He also said that the government is open to the idea of alternative financing models for MSMEs, and entrepreneurship as a course curriculum in all engineering colleges and institutes of higher education would be the way forward.

Recounting the ‘Panch Pran’ espoused by PM Narendra Modi, the minister said: “To be a developed country by 2047 has to be a collective decision of all 1.4 billion people and we will have to shed the colonial mindset that we have inherited. We must learn to take pride in our history and tradition from which there is so much to learn. The government has ensured that there is no discrimination on the basis of caste or religion or creed in all the social welfare programmes and reforms to foster great unity and each one of us has to recognise our responsibilities, to contribute to making India really a great nation.”

Sharing his views on the issue of greenhouse gases and sustainability, Minister Goyal said: “My considered view on the topic is that it is related to consumption and yet we are blaming the manufacturers. Developed countries with outsourced production are talking about pollution generated by coal-based power plants. What they failed to realise is that they became developed countries on the back of all the low-cost energy that the coal-based power plants gave them for over 100 years as they industrialised their economies. They continue to have 10 times more pollution per capita than the developing countries or less developed countries but are neither providing the finance nor technology to help the rest of the world adopt sustainability and yet expect the world to be responsible for the problems that they are facing.”

In his address, Assocham President Sanjay Nayar said: “The government has made tremendous investments in social, physical and digital infrastructure but to get to Bharat@100, the private sector will have to play a bigger role. Trade diplomacy through FTAs, investment corridors and working with friendly countries has a tremendous impact on the MSME sector which is the backbone of the economy.”