Representatives of industrial associations interacted with senior officials from the Ministries of Power and MSME here on Saturday and highlighted the challenges they faced, mainly in improving energy efficiency.
The 15th meeting of “Small and Medium Enterprises: Energy Efficiency Knowledge Sharing Platform (Sameeksha)” was held here in which officials from the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) also took part. Office-bearers of seven or eight industrial associations, covering textiles, foundries, pumpsets, and air compressors, participated.
Sudhir Garg, Joint Secretary of Ministry of MSME, said at the meeting that the clear goal of the Ministry was to improve competitiveness of the MSMEs. The units face a lot of challenges in the international and domestic markets. Technological developments such as virtual reality and augmented reality are penetrating into the manufacturing sector. MSMEs need to be competitive in such a scenario. They need to device new methods to bring down costs and energy is a significant factor to improve margins. The units should improve energy efficiency and go in for renewable energy. They should leverage on the Common Facility Centre scheme of the Government, he said.
According to Raj Pal, Economic Advisor of Ministry of Power, Indian industry is diverse and even within the MSMEs there are different segments, such as service oriented, technology intensive, and power intensive units. When the units are energy efficient, they not only save on costs but also contribute to greener environment. The Ministry of Power has schemes for the MSMEs. If MSME units or associations have research and development topics, the Ministry can fund it through its schemes.
Abhay Bakre, Director General of BEE, said the requirements of MSMEs varied for each sector, location, and technology, thus making knowledge sharing important. “We want new technologies to come up and these should be useful to MSMEs.” When policies are made for the MSME sector, it requires clear inputs from clusters and industrial associations.
Girish Sethi, senior director of TERI, said the organisation was working in the area of energy efficiency for a long time and SMEs were a focus sector. These units can play a key role in reducing energy consumption and moving towards renewable energy, especially solar and biomass.
According to V. Krishnakumar, president of Southern India Engineering Manufacturers’ Association, the Government should give incentives to users of pumpsets so that they go in for energy efficient ones. Similarly, it should ensure that MSMEs are able to participate in large-scale tenders for energy efficient products.
Later, the officials from the Ministries launched a demonstration system of “State-of-the-art energy efficient air compressor” installed at one of the foundries here with financial support under the GEF-UNIDO-BEE project called Promoting Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy in Selected MSME Clusters in India. They also visited the energy management centre, funded through the project, at COINDIA premises here.
