A product design centre, catering to the MSME sector, will come up at the Sidco industrial estate Thirumudivakkam. To be implemented in Public-Private Partnership mode, the project will have Tamil Nadu Small Industries Development Corporation (Tansidco) as the nodal agency.
Around 1.6 acres of land has been earmarked for this venture which would be housed inside the industrial estate as part of the mega cluster venture that was announced by the DMK government.
While announcing the revised State budget for the year 2021-2022, Minister for Finance and Human Resources Management, Palanivel Thiaga Rajan, mentioned that five mega clusters in pharmaceutical, petro chemicals, precision manufacturing, defence and aerospace and smart mobility sectors would be established at a cost of ₹100 crore each.
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“There are many small and medium enterprises which develop new products but don’t have the right infrastructure to test and validate their products. The product incubation centre will support MSMEs from concept to realisation or from realised product to new concept. Support will be given to firms which have a concept design and are willing to develop their own product before they start their own facility,” said R.Selvam, secretary, Thirumudivakkam Industrial Estate Manufacturers’ Association.
He added, “The cluster will have a facility for new product development for e-vehicles, aerospace and automobile components. Help will also be extended to those who want to file product patents and trade registrations.” The main purpose of the centre would be to improve the competitiveness of MSMEs by supporting them to develop innovative products for the domestic and global market.
MSME secretary V. Arun Roy said the idea was to enable our engineering industry to access next gen technology without spending individually on machinery and to help them reverse engineer products. “Apart from the product design centre, this cluster will have several other testing facilities catering to various sectors,” he added.
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It is learnt that a detailed project report is being prepared by Industrial and Technical Consultancy Organisation of Tamil Nadu Limited (ITCOT). A senior official off ITCOT said this mega cluster would be a hub and spoke model. “Even for basic testing, firms now come to Chennai which involves a lot of time and huge money. So the plan is to make Thirumudivakkam the hub and places including Sriperumbudur, Oragadam and Irungattukottai as the spoke,” he added.