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Govt to formulate SSI policy in three months

Union Minister of State for Small-scale Industries and Agro and Rural Industries Vasundhara Raje has said a comprehensive policy for small-scale industries would be formulated by the central government within three months.

Raje, who inaugurated the 'Nassicon 2000' convention as part of the golden jubilee celebrations of Karnataka Small-scale Industries Association, said that the policy which would form part of the new legislation for the SSI would cover all aspects related to SSIs to suit the growing needs of the sector in relation to the global perspectives, especially the World Trade Organisation norms.

Emphasising that the future would be the 'Millennium of SSIs', she said the sector produced 8000 products. The number of units has gone up from 1.9 million in 1991 to 3.1 million in 1999. The most remarkable and outstanding performance of the sector was creation of job opportunities. The sector created 4.2 million new jobs as against the entire organised sectors, including the government's 1.4 million new jobs during the same period.

She said her ministry was now conducting workshops on World Trade Organisation sensitisation. The government would also react with industrial associations and the business community later to take proper measures in context of WTO.

The ministry would also take upon itself the role of advocacy in respect of anti-dumping and countervailing duties wherever harm is likely to be caused to the SSI sector.

The introduction of the credit guarantee scheme with a corpus of Rs 1.25 billion has been approved for the sector and the Small Industries Development Bank of India, or SIDBI, would provide guarantee for SSIs in respect of bank loans up to Rs 1 million. The technology development and modernisation fund scheme had been Extended for three more years.

UNI

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