WB ministries urged to buy more from SSIs

The ministry for small scale industry has urged all other government departments to enhance the volume of goods and services brought from the small scale sector.

The minister of state for small scale industry, Tapan Sikdar said that his department has also urged the prime minister for bringing in a law that would compulsorily require all government departments to source certain percentage of their requirement from the small scale sector.

"We have written letters to all the ministry urging them to buy larger quantities of goods and services from the SSI sector," explained Tapan Sikdar at the sideline of a seminar on 'Small industry dialogue' organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

The minister said the government has recently taken a cluster approach to improve the health of the sector. The central government has identified three clusters in West Bengal.

These were a surgical manufacturing cluster at Baruipur, mixed manufacturing units cluster at Kalyani and a third at Talbander Bodai.

The ministry has firmed up plans of disbursing 75 per cent of the funds required to the Baruipur Cluster for setting up a common facility centre at a cost of Rs 3.2 crore. The state government will be providing the rest of the fund.

The central government has also asked the state to formulate proposal for similar central facility in the other two clusters. The process has already been initiated and a concrete proposal is likely to emerge shortly.