The Hindu Business Line : `Schemes designed for SSIs go unnoticed'

MANY concessions and schemes designed to meet the requirements of small-scale industries go unnoticed, requiring a concerted effort to educate industries and chambers.

The Chairman and Managing Director of National Small Industries Corporation, Mr H.P. Kumar, said that a special technology upgradation scheme, which comes with a 50 per cent subsidy, is barely touched as there have been very few takers for such a good scheme that suits a good number of small industries in the country. The irony is that most of the scheme funds have not been utilised.

Speaking at National Vendor Development meet, Mr Kumar said that there is another scheme referred to as `Price Preference Scheme' that helps them in streamlining credit and marketing.

The Government recently launched the `Performance Rating System' that helps establish the creditworthiness of industries, which enables them to tap new markets. Referring to opportunities for collaborations with counterparts from the US, Africa, South American countries and the Gulf region, Mr Kumar said that recent interactions with representatives of some of these regions showed that many industries are seeking local partners to tap the Indian market.

Particularly, the interaction with representatives from US small industries was extremely fruitful, as many of them wanted local collaborations.

Voicing concern about lack of awareness of some of the schemes that were designed to meet the requirements of small industries and entrepreneurs, Mr Kumar said that one of the reasons for failure to reach out was due to financial institutions, which are the local representatives directly concerned with industries in their local area.

Earlier, the General Manager of Vizag Steel Plant (VSP), Mr G.S. Bhowmick, said that small industries have immense scope to partner VSP in terms of various inputs that go into the expansion project undertaken at an investment of Rs 8,700 crore.