Concerned with the inadequate availability of credit to the small-scale sector, Minister of Small Scale Industries C P Thakur on Thursday said he will soon take up the issue with finance ministry and the Reserve Bank of India.
"I am planning to take the issue to the Finance Minister Jaswant Singh and the Reserve Bank of India after the Budget," he said.
Thakur said the SSI units were unable to get credit from the banks despite a directive to issue certain percentage of the loans towards priority sector. High cost of credit was also an impediment, he said.
Thakur said the ministry was also considering certain measures to boost exports from the SSI sector. "Since individual SSI firms find marketing their products abroad a financial strain, we are examining the possibility of getting a few SSI industries to come together and undertake combined marketing for their products."
"Having small groups would save costs and help them to target bigger markets for their products," he said.
Thakur said the ministry was also working on strengthening its cluster development programme. "We are awaiting the result of the ongoing SSI census survey which will for the first time cover even the sick units. Once the results are collated, we will undertake state specific projects."
Thakur said the focus of his ministry would be to make the SSI products globally competitive in terms of technology, quality and price.
Lack of credit to the SSI sector has been in the focus for some time. While flow of credit to the SSI sector has increased from Rs 25,843 crore (Rs 258.43 billion) in March 1995 to Rs 49,743 crore (Rs 497.43 billion) in March 2002 flow as a percentage of net bank credit has declined.
