Minister Babul Supriyo Calls Gujarat Chemical Companies for a Meeting to Delhi

Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) organized CII Gujarat Chemical Conclave: Challenges & Way Forward on Tuesday, 13 Oct 2020. This conclave was hosted online (webex) and was attended by 150 CEO / MDs form Gujarat Chemical Companies.

The objective of this conclave was to identify the challenges and potential solutions in terms of technology and compliance for chemical industry. The conclave also focused on the latest environmental legislation & how it will impact the chemical sector in Gujarat.

Various eminent speakers shared their perspective on how the objectives could be achieved. Babul Supriyo, Minister of State, Environment, Forest & Climate Change, Government of India said, “Gujarat has been a role model for the country. Gujarat has 5% of India’s population, yet contributes 8% to India’s GDP and 20% of India’s exports. This is phenomenal. Gujarat is a hub of chemicals in India and slowly India is becoming a global base of chemicals. It is thus that Gujarat will play a major role in making India a 5 trillion dollar economy.“

He further added that ”The ministry understands that there are concerns of chemical companies related to compliance and timely approvals and hence I request a delegation of Gujarat chemical companies to come and meet me in Delhi with a white paper which will clearly indicate the obsolete processes and delays, this will directly help chemical companies to compete with global players.”

Anand Desai, Convenor, CII Gujarat Chemical Panel said “India ranks 6th in the world in Chemicals sales and contributes 3% to global chemical industry. India is emerging as one of the focus destinations for chemical companies due to its high domestic consumption growth and Government’s “Make in India” is creating conducive environment to facilitate investments. The Chemicals industry is a $5.4 trillion global industry today. Most of the growth in the sector in the past 2 decades has been driven by Asia, which owns half of the global chemical sales.”

Divya Aggarwal, Counsellor – CII – ITC Centre for Excellence for Sustainable Development (CESD) made a technical presentation and spoke about upcoming amendments in the environment policies. She added that “Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) is now undergoing the process of revising draft COINDS for pesticide industry wherein, certain standards have been revised and is also revising deep sea discharge standards. Participants were given an overview of the standards being revised and the key concerns of the industries with regards to the revised standards. A comparison of the EIA Notification 2006 with the draft EIA Notification 2020 was also discussed for key clauses such as categorisation of projects into Category A, B1, B2, dealing of violation cases and exemptions provided under Public Consultation clause”

Jai Shroff, Global CEO, UPL Ltd mentioned about the Project Independence which focuses on reducing the imports of raw material from other countries and make the entire supply chain 100% India dependent. He also briefed that UPL has started working with their suppliers for improving their efficiency and process intensification, this will help them to be more competitive and better companies.

Maulik Mehta, CEO, Deepak Nitrite was the convenor for this program.