IT SMEs have a crucial part to play towards realising the new Government's objective of making India a manufacturing hub. The Government is going all out to assist SMEs who wants to set up manufacturing facilities in India.
With an aim to create awareness among SMEs about the various initiatives, policies and schemes by the government, MAIT, the apex body representing India's IT hardware, training and R&D services sectors, in association with the Ministry of Communication & Information Technology and Ministry of MSME had recently organised the ‘ICT SME Conclave - 2014' across five cities in India. The last leg of this conclave was held recently in Noida.
The SME Conclave offered a single window for all the MSMEs to connect with each other and various government bodies, thereby highlighting their key issues related to the policy framework, funding etc and get a better understanding of various schemes and opportunities on offer that can be utilized for the benefit of the industry. It aimed to equip the SMEs to prepare themselves thoroughly for evaluating the business opportunities and take necessary actions in developing their enterprises with the help of IT to achieve business goals. MAIT has also introduced a website catering to the various information needs of the SMEs http://www.maitsme.com
Speaking at the conclave Anwar Shirpurwala, Executive Director, MAIT said, "The initiative of the new Government is extremely encouraging, especially its focus on the manufacturing sector. However, what is needed is a clear roadmap for implementation. Through this conclave we are socialising government schemes to SMEs and are helping them to leverage it for manufacturing."
Some of the issues discussed at the conclave are related to training of the manpower and skill development, funding procedures, setting up of electronic manufacturing clusters and various schemes for supporting SMEs in the sector.
In his address, Rahul Gupta, Chairman, SME Chapter, MAIT, said, "To brand itself as a premier IT and manufacturing hub at a global level, Indian Government needs to create an exclusive ecosystem across all industry verticals so that the businesses can build and grow the entire value chain required to come up for excellent results. Public administration also needs to re-structure the taxation and incentives system besides reforming the existing policies such as subsidized land, creating manufacturing corridors, offering subsidies to manufacturers for plants and machineries. A lot more is to be designed, planned and done for an effective roadmap."
The conclave witnessed participation from various government agencies and representatives from The Ministry of Communications & IT, MSME Development Institute, NSIC, ELCINA and others. Through this initiative MAIT is looking forward to work closely both with the Government and SME manufactures towards making India a manufacturing hub.
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