Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, September 6

Members of the Federation of Industrial and Commercial Organisation (FICO) have demanded a new technology centre for Ludhiana so that the industry can update itself, grow and compete with global players. The demand was raised before Vinamra Mishra, Director (Technical and Projects), Ministry of MSME, GoI.

FICO president Gurmit Singh Kular said there was a need for technological assistance where the industry could get technical assistance to improve their product and productivity. A technology and incubation centre in the city was the need of the hour as till date the industry was working on old principles and technologies. In such a scenario, the local industry would never be able to compete with global players.

Besides, to boost the industry, the Credit Link Capital Subsidy Scheme needs to be revived which facilitated technology upgrade in the MSMEs by providing an upfront capital subsidy of 15 per cent.

“We demand that the Credit Link Capital Subsidy Scheme should be made permanent as it is the only scheme for the upgrade of the MSME industry and it also provides the subsidy on the bank interest,” Kular said.

Since the imposition of the lockdown, the industry was operating at around 40 per cent of its capacity due to restrictions issued by the government in view of the Covid-19. Though the demand of items had increased, the production capacity of the industry had failed to rise. Whereas, the steel prices have increased from Rs8,000 to 10,000 per tonne in the past 45 days, which was not acceptable. The government should intervene in the matter and form a steel price regulatory committee to regulate the steel prices and rationalise them so that the Indian industry could produce products at viable rates and compete with China, Taiwan and other manufacturing countries, said FICO members, including general secretary Rajiv Jain.