MMSME to train 500,000 youth by 2010
Meanwhile, he said the composition of the National Skill Development Corporation was being finalised. The government has already earmarked Rs 15,000 crore for the corporation. Under this, various ITIs will be upgraded to train the youth according to the industry requirements. "We will focus on automobile, garments, welding and other sectors where there is huge demand for trained manpower,'' he said, adding that the proposed body has obtained various clearances.
MMSME is also looking to promote lean manufacturing in about 100 clusters. The focus will be on quality output with optimum manpower and resource utilisation. It will bear 80 per cent of the consultation costs, hired for identifying skill gaps, he said while speaking on the sidelines of inauguration of national programmes in multimedia and livelihood promotion and micro enterprises at the National Institute for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (ni-msme) here.
The ministry had recently launched a capital-linked credit subsidy scheme for extending 25 per cent subsidy to MSMEs for technology improvements. It will shortly launch Prime Minister's Employment Guarantee Programme by merging the existing rural employment guarantee programme and the Prime Minister Rozgar Yojana with revised parameters. Here again, the ministry will focus on skill enhancement.
Earlier, Rai released a seminar volume of 'sustainable development of SMEs', authored by ni-msme registrar GUK Rao.
C Kondaiah, director general of ni-msme, said plans were on to offer postgraduate-level courses relating to MSME. The institue would also offer diploma courses in intellectual property rights, entrepreneurship and others. It would also set up a national research centre here and provide consultancy for developing SMEs abroad. Besides, it will work to create resource faculty.