Secretary (MSME) chairs meeting for Infrastructure/Technology/Skill Development for SMEs

The First meeting of the Sub-Group on the Infrastructure/Technology/Skill Development of the Task Force constituted by the Prime Minister’s office was held in New Delhi recently. Shri Dinesh Rai, Secretary, Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises chaired the meeting.

The Sub-Group on the Infrastructure/Technology/Skill Development is one of the seven sub-groups of the Task Force constituted by the Prime Minister’s Office to study the bottlenecks inhibiting the development of Micro and Small Enterprises and draft recommendations for implementation by various departments to put the MSEs on higher trajectory of growth.

The members of the sub group discussed various impediments in Infrastructure/Technology/Skill Development particularly in relation to MSEs. Valuable suggestions were given by the members in the meeting.

Additional Chief Secretary to Tamilnadu, Shri P. Selvam, suggested that there should be some earmarked quota of industrial plots for MSEs. Shri Saurabh Garg, Secretary-Cum-Commissioner, Government of Orissa informed that a lot of projects are being established in the State of Orissa.

On technology upgradation issues, the members of the Sub-Group mentioned that cost of technology is very high for MSEs and the Government should facilitate, incentivise and support the technology transfer at individual as well as collective levels. Linkages with Research & Development Institutes, rewarding innovation and new technology, creation of technology development fund etc. were the other suggestions for technology upgradation of SMEs. The cluster approach to offset the higher cost of technology upgradation may be one of the visible options. The issues related to skill upgradation were also discussed and it was suggested that the existing mechanism of providing training through industrial training institutes, polytechnics needs to be strengthened. Vocational training as per the requirements of the industry will be supported.

The guidelines of micro and small enterprises cluster development programme (MSE-CDP) are under revision. Provision for power generation by non-conventional energy, infrastructure development, technology upgradation, skill upgradation have been included in the proposed guidelines. The support will be provided to create infrastructural facilities in new industrial estates and to upgrade infrastructure in existing industrial clusters. The recommendations of the Sub-Group shall be submitted to the PMO after its finalization.