The country is now, more or less self-sufficient in the production of consumer goods and some basic items like iron and steel. Power generation has been substantially stepped up and infrastructure adequately built up for future industrial progress.
Among India’s major large scale industries are: cotton textile industry with over a thousand textile mills providing employment to over 15 lakh persons; iron and steel industry with six integrated steel plants and over 216 mini-steel plants; jute industry, sugar industry, cement industry etc. The small scale industrial sector comprising khadi and village industries and small scale industries is a major sources of employment and a substantial earner of foreign exchange for the country.
Here are given a brief information regarding major industries.
Aluminium: The location of this industry (smelting of aluminium) is closely related to the availability of raw material of means of transport and cheap electircity. Smelting units are in Belgaum, Hirakud, Alwaye, Alupuram, Renukoot, Mettur, Jaykaynagar, Koraput, Korba and Ratnagiri.
Automobilies: Cars are manufactured at Mumbai, Kolkata, Gurgaon, and Greater Nodia—UP. Buses and trucks are manufactured at Chennai and Mumbai; jeeps and four and three-wheeler (scooters and motor-cycles) are manufactured at Pune, Mumbai, Faridabad, Chennai, Mysore, Ludhiana and Tirupati.
Cement: The leading producers of cement are Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan.
Cycles: The chief centres of bicycle production are Mumbai, Asansol, Sonepat, Delhi, Chennai, Jalandhar and Ludhiana.
Copper smelting: The Maubhander unit of the Indian Copper Corporation Ltd was the first copper smelting unit in India. The second is in Khetri, Rajasthan, one of the largest of its type in the world, Hindustan Copper Project is in Palakkad district in Kerala.
Cotton textiles: This is the most important industry in India in terms of employment and production of export goods. Although Maharashtra and Gujarat are the chief centres, other important states in this field are Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Tamil Nadu has the largest number of cotton textile mills.
Fertilisers: The major centres are at Sindri, Nangal, Trombay, Gorakhpur, Durgapur, Namrup, Cochin, Rourkela, Neyveli, Varanasi, Baroda, Visakhapatnam, Kota and Kanpur. Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh lead in the production of fertilisers.
Glass: Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal lead the industry.
Heavy electricals: The Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd plants are located at Bhopal, Hyderabad, Tiruchirapalli and Hardwar.
Heavy machinery: This is called the heavy engineering industry. The major plants are located at Ranchi, Visakhapatnam and Durgapur.
Iron and Steel: This industry is basic of industrial development. It is located near the sources of raw material at Jamshedpur, Burnpur, Bhardrawati, Bokaro, Rourkela, Durgapur, Bhilai, Salem and Visakhapatnam. Except for the Tata Iron and Steel Company (TISCO) plant at Jamshedpur, all of them are in the public sector. The Bhilai and Bokaro plants were establised with Soviet collaboration, the Durgapur plant with British collaboration and the Rourkela plant with German collaboration. A new shore-based plants has been established at Visakhapatnam.
Jute: India manufactures the largest quantity of jute goods in the world. This industry is located mainly in West Bengal, followed by Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
Leather goods: The chief centres of production of leather goods are Agra, Kanpur, Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi.
Machine tools: The most important company in this field is Hindustan Machine Tools Ltd. with plants at Bangalore, Pinjore, Kalamassery, Hyderabad and Srinagar.
Paper and paper board: This is a forest-based industry. The first modern paper mill of the ecountry was set up in 1832 at Serampore in West Bengal. A raw material-based industry, most of the paper production units are in West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Jharkhand.
Pesticides: Pesticides are produced by a number of units. The important ones are the Hindustan Insecticides Ltd units at Delhi and Alwaye.
Pharmaceuticals: This in one of the oldest industries in India. Antibiotics are produced at Pimpri and Rishikesh. The Hindustan Antibiotics plant at Rishikesh is one of the largest in the world. Another important plant producing the pharmaceuticals in the Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (IDPL) unit at Hyderabad. A number of other units are concentrated in Mumbai, Baroda, Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata and Kanpur.
Railway equipment: Railway engines are made at Chittaranjan, Varanasi, Jamshedpur and Bhopal. Railway coaches are made at the Integral Coach Factory at Perambur, Tamil Nadu and at Kapurthala in Punjab.
Shipbuilding: The largest shipbuilding unit is Hindustan Shipyard at Visakhapatnam, followed by the Coching Shipyard. Mazagaon Dock at Mumbai is a smaller unit.
Silk textiles: Kamataka leads in silk textiles, followed by Assam, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh (including Chhattisgarh) and Jammu & Kashmir.
Sugar: The leading sugarcane producer states are also the leading sugar producers. They are Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Bihar and Jharkhand. There are more than 250 sugar mills in India, with the largest number located in Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal followed by Maharashtra.
Tractors: Tractors are manufactureed at Faridabad, Pinjore, Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai.
Woolen textiles: Important producing states are Punjab, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh (including Uttaranchal) followed by Gujarat, Karnataka and Jammu & Kashmir.
New Industrial Policy
The New Industrial Policy announced by the Government on July 24, 1991, seeks to drastically liberalise the economy and the industry by doing away with industrial licensing, except for 18 specialised cases (which has been further reduced to 15), removing virtually all restriction on MRTP companies, increasing the limit of foreign equity participation in industries from 40 per cent to 51 per cent in many hight prioity areas, removing all registration formalities and re-defining the role of the public sector. The underlying objective behind all these changes is to unshackle the Indian economy from the cobweb of unnecessary bureacratic controls.
According to the new policy, the role of the government should change from that of only exercising control over the entrepreneurs to providing help by making procedures transparant and by eliminating delays. With regard to the public sector the policy promises to strengthen its role in areas essential for the economy, but warms of review in industries which are unproductive and inefficient. The policy says in 50’s and 60’s the public sector undertaking were used to control the commanding heights of the economy; now fiscal and monetary instruments will be used. Even in area still reserved for the public sector, the private sector may also be invited. Arms and ammunition, atomic energy, minerals etc. Significant deletions from the earlier reserved list are steel, aircraft, telecommunications, power transmission and distribution shipbuilding etc.
The industrial policy of July 1991 has opened a new chapter in India’s economic history. The earlier reform only tinkered with the licence permit raj but left it intact, in all its essential aspects. The new policy explicity admits that the licence-permit raj has hampered instead of helping our development and therefore, needs to be scrapped. The policy also admits that the Governmental interferences through MRTP Act had a deleterious effect on industrial growth. The new policy, though it still retains some licensing regulations and controls to serve the social end, does away with much of the licences, permits, regulations etc. and seeks to be more ‘market friendly’ with the aim of making the government and the business as partners and not adversaries in the great national enterprise.
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