Sidbi To Assign Consultant For Recast

The Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi) is to soon appoint a management consultant to suggest restructuring of its operations and organisational set-up in the context of the impact of the new World Trade Organisation (WTO) regime on small scale industries.

The prospective consultant will make recommendations, among others, on the right product mix, on how to raise resources in a cost-effective manner, on tapping new business avenues, on organisational structure and also whether any amendments need to be made in the Sidbi Act to make its functioning more effective, chairman and managing director of Sidbi, P B Nimbalkar, said.

To give a leg-up to the SSI sector, Sidbi is planning to set up 'Laghu udyog nidhi' with a Rs 500 crore corpus for the development of the small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

It is seeking to convert the Technology Bureau for Small Enterprises, an outfit set up in 1995 in association with the United Nations - Asian and Pacific Centre for Transfer of Technology, into a technology bank, which will, in addition to facilitating transfer of technology resources from abroad, tap the technology resources from rural India.

Nimbalkar said creation of a three-tier definition of SMEs by including a separate category of medium enterprises, will facilitate vertical expansion of the units in the small scale sector and accelerate the pace of their growth.

Referring to the S P Gupta Committee report for the development and growth of SSIs, he said, investment limit in plant and machinery for tiny units should be Rs 25 lakh, for the small units this limit should continue at Rs 1 crore, while in the case of medium scale units it could be pegged at Rs 10 crore.

Net up 3.9% at Rs 477 cr

SIDBI has recorded a 3.9 per cent growth in net profit at Rs 477 crore for 2000-01 against Rs 459.40 crore in the previous year.

A 15 per cent dividend on the paid-up equity share capital of Rs 450 crore, which was held by the Industrial Development Bank of India, was also approved. Sidbi's total income grew by 1.3 per cent to Rs 1,619 crore compared with Rs 1,597.90 crore in the previous fiscal.

Loan sanctions by the institution were up 5.4 per cent to Rs 10,821 crore, though disbursements declined by 7.5 per cent to Rs 6,441 crore. The bank reduced its non-performing assets to 1.23 per cent in 2000-01 against 1.33 per cent in the previous year.