Haryana govt to revive 23 MSME clusters

Twenty-three clusters in Haryana are poised to get a new lease of life. The Haryana government, in collaboration with the Union ministry of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), has decided to provide them with common facility centres (CFCs).

MSMEs in Haryana have been languishing over the past few years owing to technological stagnation caused by financial constraints and lack of scale. The state government has decided to set up special purpose vehicles at the clusters, and funds will be released to them for creating CFCs.

The CFCs will aim to provide testing facilities, design centres, production centres, effluent treatment plants, training centres, R&D centres, raw material banks, sales depots, production display centres and exposition centres. The scheme has been taken up under an MSME renewal fund established by the Union ministry of MSME.

According to T L Satya Prakash, Haryana’s director of industries, final approval has been provided to three SPVs (Panipat Home Furnishings, Karnal Print and Pack Material and Bahadurgarh Footwear Cluster) by the Union ministry of MSME. The first tranche of the grant will be released soon in the name of each SPV.

“If properly coordinated, at least 20 CFCs will be operational by December 2014. The number may rise to 50 by 2015. This will be the largest SME support endeavour across the world,” said Satya Prakash.

Ramesh Verma, president of the Panipat Home Furnishings Exporters’ Association, is optimistic about business prospects: “We can now match our global competitors, as the efforts of industry and government will elevate the Panipat cluster to international standards.”

Vinay Taneja, Director- Marketing, Karnal Print and Pack Cluster Private Limited, adds: “Haryana’s MSME clusters have been using obsolete technologies. The dearth of funds was a big hurdle. Investment in new machinery is not viable due to the low scale of operations. The CFCs will provide the latest machinery at an affordable cost.”

Subhash Jagga of the Bahadurgarh Footwear Cluster said that they could hope to attract trained labour with the desired skill sets after the CFCs became operational.

Each centre is expected to cost about Rs 15-30 lakh. The cost will be borne by the Union ministry of MSME (75 per cent), the state government (15 per cent) and the members of the SPV representing the cluster (10 per cent).