Defence Expo: QCI plans to cover 26,000 MSMEs under ZED model

6,000 of these will be from the defence sector

The Quality Council of India plans to cover 26,000 Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises in the next two years under Zero Defect Zero Effect (ZED) model of which 6,000 would be from defence sector, a senior official said today.

"For two years, we have a target of 26,000 MSMEs out of which 6,000 MSMEs are in defence sector alone which needs to be targeted," QCI Secretary General Dr Ravi P Singh said on the sidelines of Defence Expo in South Goa.

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"During the 12th plan period, government has promised us to give subsidy up to 70-80% depending on what kind of and what size of MSME it is and they will go through this entire exercise of certification," he said.

Singh said with the new Defence Procurement Procedure recently released by the government, there is a huge opportunity for the Indian MSMEs to contribute to the 'Make In India' campaign.

"There is no better tool than ZED to provide them the competitiveness and competence to manufacture not only for the country but for the whole world," he said.

"The new Defence Procurement Procedure already in place due to which there is a huge amount of procurement that is happening in defence sector," he said.

"What we expect that all these bigger companies which want to invest in India will have to source their small components from the Indian small and medium industries," Singh said.

"That is where the model like ZED would be most essential.We will have to prepare same parts and components which the foreign players require. We do understand that India is not competitive in defence manufacturing but once these companies start coming in there is onus on small and medium enterprises to step up, to increase their processes so that there is no defect in parts and components that you are making as well as you don't impact the environment," he said.

The QCI during the ongoing Defence Expo launched ZED Maturity Assessment Model which is tailor-made for the companies in Defence sector.

"When Prime Minister spoke about Zero Defect Zero Effect, we took it upon ourselves and we have looked across all the models of quality intervention across the world and we have made very homogeneous, very expansive and very holistic model which covers the best practises of entire world," he said talking about the ZED model.