Preamble

A key objective of the industrial policy is to attain industrial and export competitiveness. In a globalising economy, design is being perceived as a new engine of economic and industrial growth. Design and breakthrough innovations can play a pivotal role in positioning of Indian industries in the global arena apart from enhancing competitiveness. Design and brand driven value chain and Intellectual Property Development including design registrations need to be developed as core strengths of Indian manufacturing and services industries in the early part of 21st Century. India also needs to aim to be a leading influencer of global design especially Asian design developing its strengths and capabilities in intellectual and strategic design development to compliment the manufacturing prowess and the growing market potential of Indian products and services. Realising the increasing influence that design is making in the economic and industrial development, and the strong brand and design promotions being carried out by competing economies in this direction, the government has been engaged in consultations with the Industry and designers, during the past one year to draft a feasible National Design Policy with a clearly focused multi-pronged strategy to enhance the quality and spread of Indian designs and to increase India’s share in the world economy through this major value addition, to our products and services. The policy is the result of such consultations.

Vision and Mission

Endowed as India is with its rich cultural heritage, a talent pool of creative, technical and entrepreneurial human resources and a wide network of premier education institutions, it shall be the endeavour of Government of India in the next 5-10 years of the new millennium characterized by intensely competitive knowledge economy:-

To prepare a platform for creative design development, design promotion and partnerships across many sectors, states, regions integrating design and technological resources to stand out in the international arena.

• To elevate Indian design and creations on the world’s stage through strategic integration and cooperation with international design organizations, and branding Indian design to project its extraordinary design value and unique and rich cultural heritage.
• To brand, position and promote Indian design supported through a well defined and managed regulatory, promotional and institutional framework.
• To feature India as a front ranking country in quality design education.
• To emphasise on creation of original Indian designs in products and services and thus create a design enabled innovation economy.
• To enable India to become hub for exports and outsourcing of designs.
• To spark interest in creative and cultural industries so that designers can draw upon India’s rich cultural heritage for inspiration for novel and distinctive designs.
• To position “Designed in India” a by word for quality and utility in conjunction with “Made in India” and “Served from India”.

Specific Objectives

The objectives of the policy are:

• Enhance the overall tangible and intangible quality by design to position India as original “design provider” and “creative manufacturer” in the world markets
• Strengthen cultural and creative industries as a backdrop to design education since culture and creativity form the base for “differential creating” capability of design.
• Develop leading edge designs to enhance the inter-relationship of technology, management, creativity and design through fundamental / applied design research and applications.
• Promote value added designs with focus on India’s unique position as a country with rich cultural heritage and a better understanding of users’ feelings, emotions, aesthetics and senses, which are the essential domains of design.
• Enhance the spread of quality design education
• Create awareness among manufacturers and service providers about the competitive advantage of original designs and target small scale and cottage industries to encourage greater use of designs in all products in India.
• Attract larger investments including foreign direct investments in design and R & D
• Use of design as a tool for industrial development and Quality of Life.
• Impact positively on the GDP growth of economy through innovation driven value chain of manufacturing, service and creative industries.

Thrust Areas

• Design Education
  
• Use of Designs by Small Scale and Cottage Industries
  
• IPR environment for protecting original Designs and accelerating Design Registrations
  
• Branding and positioning of Indian Design
  
• Design Exports
  
• Quality of Life

• Strengthening the facilities at and enhancing the status of National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad so that it can transform to a ‘Global Centre of Excellence’ in Design Education and to enable NID to offer from UG to Doctoral level studies in design.
• Introducing short term training programmes and courses by NID targeting on needy sectors and catering especially to the sectors of agro products, handicrafts and handlooms.
• Setting up of new institutes and sector specific design institutes / centres for design education in different parts of the country.
• Sustaining and strengthening the traditional knowledge, skills and capabilities while being sensitive to global heritage so that our shop floor workers, craftsmen and artisanal workforce could be engaged in manufacture of innovative products and contemporarisation of traditional crafts for broad spectrum of uses and niche markets.
• Encouraging the teaching of design oriented to the needs of Indian industry, especially small scale and cottage industries in tertiary educational institutions such as Indian Institutes of Technology, Indian Institutes of Management and Universities.
• Organising workshops and seminars to create more awareness than at present among industrialists particularly in small scale and cottage sectors in different parts especially on the intangible aspects of design processes including senses, feelings, emotions, culture, aesthetics etc. associated with design.
• Encouraging industries to make greater use of new designs, particularly original Indian designs and design innovations and support the same through regulatory and promotional framework.
• Creating mechanisms for sustainable quality improvement in designs in India.
• Creating a rich pool of designers to cater to the increasing requirements of Indian industry.
• Facilitating the regulatory environment for protection of original designs and enabling easy-to-use systems for registration of new designs.
• Encouraging industries to engage the services of designers for their existing and new products.
• Facilitating design and design-led exports of Indian products and services.
• Strengthening efforts to advocate “cradle to grave environment-friendly approach” for designs produced in India so that they have global acceptance on a sustainable basis.
• Enabling the designers in India to have access to global trends and intelligence and technology tools for product development and innovations so that they can compete effectively in the world market place.

Design initiatives

Considering the far reaching effects of designs, in the areas of IPR, income generations, copyright and internationalisation of intellectual trade practices it is proposed that the design promotion initiatives need to be dovetailed with the parameters of a regulatory as well as an institutional set up. The Designs Act 2000 has put in place a framework for documentation, classification, representation, registration, acceptance, inspection, cancellation, certification and on legal redressal. Similarly the design promotional activity needs to be specifically defined within the regulatory set up.

Keeping in view the objectives, thrust areas and strategies, following major initiatives are envisaged in the next five years:

Sectoral initiatives through Design Centres

Government will facilitate setting up of specialised Design Centres for Automobile and transportation, jewellery, leather, textiles and apparel, high-tech and digital products, toys and games. The Design Centres will provide common facilities, and enabling tools for design innovations with enterprise incubation as well as financial support for start-up ventures. Focussed attention will be given to North-Eastern region and backward states. A scheme in this regard will be formulated for suitable strategic design interventions in select locations / industrial clusters / backward states.

Branding “Indian Design” and Design Marketing

Government will endeavour to encourage Indian firms and institutions to develop strategic alliances with design firms, and institutions worldwide to gain access to technology-design know-how for better positioning and effective branding of Indian designed products and services through practical and imaginative use of design representing global design directions and the need for local design applications.

Domestic Design thrust through Good Design Mark

In the context of branding of Indian Design, which encourages and motivates Indian Industry to become design-led in the medium to long term, the achievers will be recognised to come out with good designs by providing Good Design Mark as an aspirational recognition. A mechanism will be worked out for creating a brand image for Indian designs through the award of a Good Design Mark (India Design Mark) on designs which satisfy certain design criteria like appeal, centricity, ergonomic features, safety, environment findings etc., as decided by an expert committee.

Spread of Design Education and Strengthening & Upgrading NID

The current availability of designers is not sufficient for the growing needs of Indian industry. Government’s endeavour will be with the involvement of private sector to produce about 5000 to 8000 designers per annum including designers, design- technicians, model makers, visualizes and design assistants per year with an annual growth of 10%-20%.

In order to ensure spread of quality design education, efforts will be made with the cooperation of private sector to create design consciousness at different levels or education as well as among industries. The Ministry of Commerce and Industry will work in close coordination with the Ministry of Human Resource Development and the All India Council of Technical Education in this regard.

Setting up of India Design Council

In order to create awareness regarding Indian design both within India and abroad and to bring cohesion to design activities in the country an India Design Council (IDC) would be set up with eminent personalities from different walks of life. The India Design Council will act as a platform for interaction with all stakeholders, undertaking design awareness and effectiveness programmes, strategy and impact studies, accreditation of design institutions and programmes and such other varied and relevant activities. The Design Council may also take steps for enhancing the country’s international competitiveness by developing and implementing quality systems through design and raising the standards of design support and infrastructure, facilities, promotion, education, user research and standards and benchmarks for professional practice. The Council may also encourage close cooperation between academia and industry to produce proprietary design know-how while encouraging creation of new design-led enterprises for wealth creation. The Council will actively encourage and facilitate a culture for creating and protecting intellectual property especially related to Designs.

Implementation Plan & Timeframe

The envisaged action plans, deliverables and outcomes of the National Design Policy are indicated in the annexure in a 3-5 years. On the basis of the experience during this period, further strategies and schemes will be drawn up later.

In conclusion, the Government is committed to realising a pro-active and congenial environment to enable design-led Indian enterprises, Indian brands and creative industries including traditional and crafts industries with high design and product value, growing IT enabled service sectors, to achieve global excellence and to fulfil its obligations to different sections of the society. In fulfilment of the objectives and in pursuit of the Vision, the government will enlist the cooperation and involvement of all the stakeholders and ensure continuous monitoring and review of the various delivery mechanisms and accomplishment of the specific objectives in a time bound manner.

National Design Policy: Action Plans, Deliverables, Outcomes