NEW DELHI:The government-appointed think-tank’s draft report on IPR will be send to the Cabinet for its approval soon, said Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman here on Monday.
The National IPR Policy has been formulated with the mission to foster innovation, accelerate economic growth, employment and entrepreneurship besides protecting public health, food security and environment, among other areas of socio-economic importance, by encouraging innovation through tax incentives and modifying intellectual property rights (IPR).
Sitharaman said, different people, countries and organisations have already given their inputs on the draft policy. “After adopting a transparent process of drafting this policy, it is now being with the government for a month or two. It has gone to all the ministries, which is a necessary process, for inter-ministerial consultation.”
Meanwhile, to avoid ‘fly by night operators’, the foreign institutional investment limit in the banking and defence sector has been retained at the existing level, Sitharaman clarified.
“In those two specific areas, those specific sub-caps will prevail. We do not want fly by night operators or quick money coming in or going on in sensitive sectors,” she said.
The proposal is aimed at simplification of FDI policy with a view to attracting foreign investments and also improving ease of doing business in India. Under the existing policy, there were different caps for separate investment categories like FDI, FII and NRIs.
However, individual FDI and FII limits would continue in two key sectors, banking and defence. The limit of portfolio investment in banking is capped at 49 per cent while in defence it is 24 per cent.
In 2014-15, investment by foreign institutional investors (FIIs) grew over seven times to $40.92 billion. FDI grew 27 per cent to $30.93 billion in the previous fiscal.