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Leather sector should create more jobs to achieve Aatmanirbhar Bharat: Gadkari

Our Bureau Chennai | Updated on February 16, 2021

Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways and MSME with KJ Sreeram, Director- CSIR, CLRI, at the inauguration of CETP plant, Ranipet, in Chennai on Tuesday   -  Bijoy Ghosh

“The MSME is the backbone of Indian economy. Without MSME, we cannot achieve the goal of Atmanirhbar Bharat, which is the dream of Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” said Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways and MSME.

The MSME Ministry in the next five years plans to increase the sector’s contribution to GDP from 30 to 40 per cent and exports to 60 per cent from 48 per cent. It plans to increase the number of jobs generated in the sector by another 5 crore from 11 crore now, he said here.

Gadkari was addressing a gathering at CSIR-CLRI, Chennai, after virtually inaugurating the additional capacity of one million litre a day and Zero Liquid Discharge system of the Common Effluent Treatment Plant at Ranipet Tannery Effluent Treatment Company Ltd (RANITEC), in Ranipet.

To achieve the goal of Aatmanirbhar Bharat, it is important to create more employment opportunities. The minister urged the leather industry to contribute to achieve this goal. He also urged the industry to create more auxiliary industries in rural areas to encourage young entrepreneurs and create more jobs to reverse the trend of rural population migrating to cities.

Thanking the Council of Leather Exports and Central Leather Research Institute the Minister urged the institutions to encourage the leather industry clusters in other parts of the country also to adopt such eco-friendly practices so as to reduce the environmental pollutants generated by the leather sector.

FASTtag

Gadkari replied in the negative when asked whether there would be a further extension of the deadline to allow people to fix FASTtag on their vehicles.

The mandatory use of FASTag in automobiles for paying toll on highways came into force from Tuesday.

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Published on February 16, 2021
employment
leather
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