Odisha to have country's first auto servicing cluster

The union ministry of MSMEs has approved setting up of common facility centres at Bargarh, Ganjam & Brahmagiri

In a first, the Centre has initiated steps to develop the Automobile Servicing Cluster in Odisha under the 'Micro and Small Enterprises - Cluster Development Programme (CDP)' scheme.

"There are 52 big servicing units in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack. In order to develop a cluster, the Government of India has approved to develop it under the MSE-CDP scheme. It is taken on a pilot basis to develop an automobile servicing cluster in the country", said P K Gupta, director (in-charge), MSME Development Institute, Cuttack.

He was speaking at a seminar on Cluster Development & Design Clinic & Lean Manufacturing Competitiveness Scheme, organised by industry body Utkal Chamber of Commerce and Industry (UCCI) in association Institute of Entrepreneurship Development (IED) and National Productivity Council (NPC).

"The diagnostic study report for the cluster has been approved by the Union ministry and we will be going for the soft intervention. We will identify five to 10 acres of land for setting up a common facility centre and prepare a detailed project report in the future. The centre will have facilities which individual units cannot afford", he added.

The Union ministry of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) has approved setting up of common facility centres at Bargarh, Ganjam and Brahmagiri (in Puri district).

Speaking on the occasion, Nityananda Palai, director of industries called upon the industries associations to act as catalytic agents for development of clusters in the state.

Ramesh Mohapatra, president, UCCI and Arun Mishra, managing director, Tata Steel SEZ (Gopalpur) also spoke on the occasion.