State upgrades 5 DICs to RICs

To improve the service delivery of the District Industries Centres (DICs) in the state, the Orissa government has upgraded 5 DICs. These DICs are located at Raygada, Rourkela, Dhenkanal, Kalinganagar and Sambalpur.

The upgraded centres will be termed as ‘Regional Industries Centers (RICs)’ and each will be headed by an official of the rank of Joint director. All the industries working in the adjoining areas will be attached with the RICs. The head of these RICs will work for successful implementation of the recently adopted MSME Development policy, 2008, sources said.

Apart from functioning as normal General Managers, the head of RICs will work for activating the district level co-ordination committees (DLCCs) and Plant Level Advisory Committees (PLACs).While all the vacant posts in these Centres will be filled up, they will be provided with logistic support enabling them to act as the focal point of industrialisation.

The state government will take up the infrastructure development in the RICs and bring in qualitative improvement in man power. The state government has already made a budgetary provision of Rs 1.2 crore for upgradation work in the supplementary provisions for 2008-09. It may also seek the central assistance for this initiative. The joint directors, who would be heading the RICs, will facilitate the promotion of ancillary and downstream industries, in association with the mega mother units. They will liaison with mega units for ensuring the development of the ancillary and the downstream industries, sources added.

It may be noted, a high level meeting chaired by the chief minister in 2007 decided to upgrade DICs located at Angul, Dhenkanal, Jharsuguda, Kalinganagar and Raygada. Subsequently, the industry secretary convened a follow up meeting on 26 May, 2008.

However, some changes were made in the proposed locations for setting up of RICs. The director, industries, Orissa government submitted a revised proposal for the upgradation of 5 DICs located at Dhenkanal, Sambalpur, Rourkela, Raygada and Kalinganagar.

While the earlier proposal was to upgrade the DICs located at Angul and Jharsuguda, the revised proposal left out these two DICs and included Sambalpur and Dhenkanal instead. Official sources said, the revised proposal was based on the availability of the physical infrastructure, manpower, locational advantage and industrial potential among others. Sources said, the infrastructure in the existing DICs will be upgraded for converting DICs to RICs, through the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT).This is expected to enable RICs to meet the requirement of present day entrepreneurs. Besides, the quality of the manpower will be improved through training.

While the General Managers (GMs) of the DICs were considered as the field formations of the directorate of industries earlier, in the changed scenario, they will be projected as the field formations of the entire industry department. This is expected to broaden the scope of activities of the DICs, sources added.