GUJARAT

Gujarat-based Home textiles manufacturers are struggling to get export orders. These manufacturers foresee tough times for almost six months, due to high raw material prices and high in key exports markets such as Europe and the US. Margins have fallen significantly and even after the start of the newcottonseason, the situation has not improved. Gujarat-based home textile manufacturers get around 75% of their revenue from exports.

Gujaratis a large manufacturer of home textiles and around 80% of our production is meant for export.

According to Industry players, Indian home textile exports were worth about $9 billion in the last financial year and the US accounts for more than 55% of India’s home textile exports, from where demand has been adversely affected.

With a strong demand Growth in thehealthcarespace and people focusing more on preventative care after the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic, pharma companies are adding more drugs and products to their existing portfolios.

As a result, there has been a substantial jump in productapprovalsgranted to manufacture medicines inGujarat.

For instance: Gujarat Food and Drug Control Administration (FDCA) in September issued 5,494 licences to make different allopathic drugs and products. Except January and April, the number of product permissions provided to pharma firms every month has hovered above the 5,000-mark this year, shows data compiled by the FDCA-Gujarat.

While exports of pharmaceuticals have been robust ever since the pandemic struck, the domestic market growth has also bounced back strongly. This has prompted more and more companies to launch their products to cater to the growing demand, added players.

To encourage local manufacturing of semiconductors and create two lakh jobs over the next five years,GujaratCMBhupendra Patelon Wednesday unveiled the states Semiconductor Policy 2022-27.

The policy, designed in line with the Union governments India Semiconductor Mission (ISM), offers a slew of incentives and subsidies to attract in the semiconductor manufacturing sector. An outlay of Rs 76,000 crore has also been allocated by the Union Government.

The State Government will set up the Gujarat State Electronics Mission (GSEM) to function as the nodal agency for implementation of the policy.
The state government will provide additional assistance of 40% of the capital assistance from the Union government.

As part of the policy, the state government is expected to set upDholera Semicon Cityat the Dholera Special Investment Region (SIR) near Ahmedabad. Eligible projects will get a 75% subsidy on purchase of the first 200 acres of land for manufacturing units.

As part of preparation for an inspection of National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) scheduled next year, authorities ofVeer Narmad South Gujarat University(VNSGU) have planned to spruce up its hygiene. So, they will spend Rs 21 lakh now to get feedback about quality ofcleanlinessin its lavatories, while nobody mentions anything about their quality of Education.

As part ofSwachhata Abhiyanwe are trying to monitor the quality of cleanliness in the lavatories of the university campus. However, it is not accepted by the syndicate yet.

Varsity has planned to install feedback devices in 320 lavatories on university departments, convention hall and administrative offices. For the device, it was to incur Rs 11 lakh cost and another Rs 10 lakh estimated for its Internet connectivity.

China is the biggest importer of Indiansaltwith nearly 50 lakh tonnes being shipped there annually. However, this has reduced to just 15 lakh tonnes in the period from June 2020 to June 2021 compared to 50 lakh tonnes in the comparative period the year ago, according to data shared by Indian Salt Manufacturers Association (ISMA). This period marks the end of the salt season. This is the second consecutive year that exports to China have fallen. Last year, the export was down because of worldwide lockdowns and the US-China trade war.

China is the worlds biggest producer of salt but it imports huge quantities from India in order to re-export it to the US and European countries where it is used for industrial purposes as well as de-icing. They prefer importing from China due to convenience.

Gujarat saw a net addition of some 83,245telecom subscribers in Aprilthis year, according to the latest telecom subscription report by (TRAI).

Gujarats net subscriber base increased to 6.63 crore in April 2023 compared to 6.62 crore in March this year, registering a marginal increase. This comes at a time when across India, the number oftelecom subscribersdeclined by 7.9 lakh to touch 114.31 crore in April.

With this, the tele density in Gujarat stood at 92.73% pan India, according to the report. While this is higher than the national tele density of 84.46%, Gujarat is still lagging behind nine states which have much higher tele density. These include Delhi (273.32%), Kerala (121.66%), Himachal Pradesh (119.24%), Punjab (114.68%) and even industrialized states such as Tamil Nadu (103.41%), Maharashtra (101.61%), Karnataka (101.55%) and Andhra Pradesh (93.05%).

Union Home and cooperation minister AmitShahsaid that cooperative sector banks will soon be given permission to implement government welfare schemes, which use the trinity of Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile (JAM) for direct benefit transfer (DBT).
JAM is the Centres initiative to linkJan Dhanaccounts, mobile numbers and Aadhaar cards to plug leakages of government subsidies.

The cooperative sector has been kept away from JAM DBT schemes. But the Centre has now decided to allow the to implement these government schemes.

At present, 52 ministries use DBT with the help of JAM to provide assistance to beneficiaries under 300 government schemes.