The central government has convened a mega convention of all the stake holders of the small-scale industries on August 30. The second SSI meet would be chaired by Union home minister LK Advani. It will review the progress made after the comprehensive package for the SSI and tiny sector announced by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee last year.
According to sources, the SSI meet would focus on the north-eastern sector as the region has a great potential to emerge as SSI hub.
The meet assumes significance as Vajpayee has announced a series of measures such as raising excise exemption limit from Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1 crore, raising for composite loans limit from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 25 lakh and continuance of Small industries development bank of India (Sidbi).
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According to senior officials, the meeting would mainly focus on issues such as globalisation, credit inflow to the sector, marketing, technology upgradation and access to information.
The financial institutions such as RBI deputy governor, chairmen of SIDBI, SBI, NSIC and KVIC would also attend the meet, sources said.
The ministry has identified 39 items which it thinks are sensitive and are susceptible to pressure from cheap imports. The items have been placed in the list of 300 items to be monitored by a high-level inter-ministerial group comprising secretaries from commerce, SSI and revenue departments.
Last year, at the national seminar of SSI, Union minister Vasundhara Raje had announced that the government would undertake a census of SSI units which would help in policy formulation. According to estimates there are nearly 13 lakh SSI units in India.
Currently, the SSI ministry relies on RBI and SSI for data collection about the sector and the latest data relating to number of units, employment, production and sickness of the year 1998-99.
According to data collected by RBI, total number of sick SSI units increased from two lakh units in 1998 to over three lakh units in 1998-99.