For unlocking India should focus on four pillars - providing alternative chemicals' destination, PLI scheme, sustainable chemistry & circular economy and energizing PCPIR, says Primus Partners Report.

The supply chain disruptions in China due to COVID-19 has led western countries to start looking for alternative sources to China for chemicals thereby creating opportunities for Indian companies for a limited time window and Indian companies should leverage it in a big way.

First, Indian companies have inherent advantages in the production of chemicals and there are many success stories in the specialty chemical space which needs to be leveraged by providing them with a lower risk environment and this can result in substantial increase in business. By taking 2-3% of global market share away from China, will result in doubling of Indian chemical industry by encouraging investment through incentives and ease of doing business and lowering the risk of investors.

Second, Production Linked Incentives (PLI) is a good measure as it incentivises the industry to quickly put up investment and start commercialise sales. For Make in India, to be successful, base industries like chemicals need to be incentivised. The timing is right for the push as the world is looking at alternative sources other than China and sustainable chemistry requires change and renewal of technologies. The government should speed up PLI on chemicals thereby driving significant growth in the industry.

Third, both the US and European Union are speeding up sustainability for the chemical industry. The Indian chemical companies that are exposing will have to align themselves with the goals. It also gives the Indian Industry an opportunity to adopt global best practices. The sector also needs support through regulations as well as incentives.

Fourth, the government is working on overhauling the policy and is working on the 2020-2035 vision. Some of the key recommendations are to have denser concentration, specific cluster integration, better environmental management & monitoring etc. There is an urgent need to upgrade the infrastructure of PCPIRs (Petroleum, Chemicals and Petrochemicals Investment Regions) to have better master planning and incentivize investment in the regions.