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The government is working on a scheme to incentivise creation of export infrastructure by States. It will be on the lines of the Assistance to States for Infrastructure Development of Exports (ASIDE) scheme that was discontinued by the Centre in 2015-16, but with different features.
States will also be ranked by the Centre on their logistics performance beginning this year. This could give potential investors an idea of what to expect in terms of logistical support when they take their investment decisions.
“Since almost all the States had expressed their wish for a Central scheme which supports export infrastructure, we have acted on your suggestion and are trying to formulate such a scheme….. I hope we can soon succeed in achieving a consensus for the roll out of this scheme,” Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in her speech at the second meeting of Council for Trade Development and Promotion on Thursday.
The Minister was addressing Ministers and senior officials from various States who come together to evolve a common strategy to promote exports.
The proposed scheme would be called Trade Infrastructure for Export Scheme or TIES and would help strengthen the Centre’s ties with States, the Minister added.
The ASIDE scheme was given up by the Centre when the States’ share in net proceeds of the Union tax revenues was increased to 42 per cent from 32 per cent in line with the 14th Finance Commission’s recommendations.
On the issue of ranking States on logistics, Sitharaman said the ranking would be on their logistics readiness. “There can be little progress on trade facilitation unless States are prepared with plans to manage logistics well, create a logistics hub and have trained manpower to handle it,” Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said addressing a press conference after the meeting.
Most States were interested in the ranking exercise and it would start in the on-going year, the Minister added. Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) Secretary Ramesh Abhishek said that the government was in the process of appointing agencies to work on the parameters for the logistics performance index. “The ranking will be based on the actual performance and not merely on the presence of logistics. It will be based on public feed-back,” he said.
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