In a move that will buoy the Indian Chemicals and Petrochemicals industry, the Secretary of the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals (DCPC), Surjit Kumar Chaudhary, today announced a framework to encourage domestic production. He announced his plan at the Confederation of Indian Industry’s (CII) Seminar on Enhancing the Competitiveness of the Indian Speciality Chemical Industry held at the Hyatt Regency in Mumbai on September, 16, 2015. 

The event was a platform for experts from business, academia, and the government to share views on how the speciality chemicals industry can achieve its enormous potential in keeping with Prime Minister Modi’s Make in India campaign. Secretary Chaudhary also launched a background paper on the specialty chemicals industry and a survey that will form the basis of CII’s 2015 Report on key Feedstock for Specialty Chemicals. 

“For sustainable development of the chemical sector my department seeks to create an enabling framework to accelerate manufacturing of chemicals and petrochemicals, in order to meet the growing internal and external demands, particularly, reducing dependence on imports,” said the Secretary. The 16-point plan is aimed at increasing the annual growth rate of the chemicals sector to 15 per cent and boosting its contribution to the overall national economy. 

Talking about the availability of feedstock supply to the downstream chemicals industry, the Secretary said that there is an in principal agreement that 20 per cent of the naphtha cracker output should be made available for the downstream chemical industry for derivative manufacturing. 

In addition to the Secretary of the Department of Chemicals & Petrochemicals, Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilizers , the event featured speakers such as NB Godrej, Chairman of CII National Committee on Chemicals and Managing Director of Godrej Industries Limited; Rupark Sarswat, Chairman of CII Sub-Committee on Feedstock and Managing Director of Croda Chemicals (India) Private Limited; and Ravi Raghavan, Editor of Chemical Weekly. 

Mumbai
16th September 2015