Gandhinagar, Thursday: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi today called for creating corpus fund for combined research in chemical industry’s responsibility towards the society and environmental technology for healthy growth of the industry in India, like that for common effluent treatment plants.
Inaugurating India Chem Gujarat-2013 International Conference at Mahatma Mandir here, he said that Indian chemical industry is 1,000-year-old which speaks of its developed stage then, but its present share in global turnover is just three per cent. He wondered as to why India cannot produce specialized chemical ink for printing our currency notes?
Mr. Modi said there is tremendous scope for producing next generation chemicals, increasing productivity and value addition in chemical industries. For instance, there are over 300 derivatives of castor oil alone.
He said that chemical and petrochemical industry faced an extra challenge from hazardous substances, posing environmental threats to the society. The onus is on the industry, which should observe the extra-sensitive safety norms and stringent laws. He said that global warming has its worst effect on chemical sector.
Gujarat’s Energy Minister Saurabh Patel said that Gujarat has made long strides under the farsighted leadership of Chief Minister Narendra Modi, thanks to the state’s policy of inclusive growth, transparency, free from red-tape, registering double digit growth in industry, electricity, petrochemical, special economic zones and maritime trade, during the last decade. He said the current conference is focused on specialized chemicals, new research, create more job opportunities and save the environment.
In all, 30 distinguished speakers will address the three-day event being attended by 6,000 delegates from India and 12 other countries and 150 exhibitors.
Earlier, Mr. R.B. Kanoria of FICCI welcomed the guests and delegates and lauded the role of Gujarat’s CM in the global map. Others present on the occasion included Gujarat’s Chief Secretary Varsh Sinha, Additional Chief Secretary for Industry Maheshwar Sahu.
