SIDBI, CII join hands

The eastern region office of Small Industries development Bank of India (Sidbi) has targeted a Rs 350 crore sanction figure for 2003-04, with actual disbursement expected to be around Rs 300 crore.

Last year, Sidbi sanctioned around Rs 199 crore while disbursement was around Rs 160 crore.

"We have already disbursed around Rs 33 crore till date," explained S L Choudhury, general manager, Sidbi. The development finance institution has put its thrust on small and medium enterprise and has been banking on the infrastructure, housing, and the services sector as well.

"A 9.5 per cent rate of interest that we are providing to our customers have helped us take banks with cheap source of funds head on. We have been allowed to provide two per cent below PLR to SMEs while our PLR as of now stands at 11.5 per cent," he added.

Sidbi in association with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has taken an initiative to provide guidance to a cluster of 12 companies in the engineering sector in and around Kolkata.

CII would provide the know how and the strategies for taking on competition.

The cluster approach will guide companies to frame internal systems and policies that will let entrepreneurs concentrate on external problems of environment and other policy related issues and not be bogged down by day to day activities.