The Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) will develop 20 technology centres, along with extension centres across the country in another 3-5 years.
According to Sudhir Garg, Joint Secretary of the Union Ministry of MSME, these centres would come up at an investment of ₹200 crore each. There are plans to have about 100 extension centres, each at an investment of ₹20 crore. “We are identifying locations. These will come up in the next three to five years. The aim is to ensure that maximum [number of] units are benefited from the facilities,” he said.
As many as 18 tool rooms are operational in the country and 15 more are in different stages of development or have started functioning. These tool rooms are specific to electronics, general engineering and high-end engineering sectors.
They have modern technology machinery and testing equipment and the services are offered to industries at a competitive price.
With the development of technologies such as virtual reality and augmented reality, the manufacturing units in the MSME sector need to have access to these.
The Ministry is creating trained manpower in virtual reality through the National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC). It has also developed training modules that use virtual reality and these will be launched across the country through the NSIC in a couple of months.
“We are training people in augmented reality too,” he said.
The Ministry has established about 100 livelihood business incubators at taluk levels to train man power and create new businesses and plans to have more such incubators, he added.
