CII and the IITs will help improve the technology base of MSMEs
In order to make India a global hub of excellence in cross-disciplinary higher education as well as in industrial research and development through industry-academia collaborations, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and all the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) recently formed the CII-IIT Council. The council comprises directors of the 13 IITs and key industry captains of CII’s National Council, and aims to make India a global hub of technical education.
The council has launched an initiative called ‘An Industrial Technology & Innovation Mission’. It involves creation of an industry pool with special emphasis on micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME), which will invest in product development and future technologies.
In fact, to encourage entrepreneurship, the Ministry of MSME recently launched an MSME Incubation Centre with the IITs and other technical institutes. According to Professor L S Ganesh, head of the entrepreneurship cell at IIT Madras, the ministry has supported the centre with Rs 66 lakh and this will support students’ business ideas. The incubation centre at IIT Madras will be sector-agnostic, and will support ventures in sectors such as biotechnology, information technology, engineering and business management, among others.
IIT Madras has been a good breeding ground for entrepreneurship. It has a masters’ programme in entrepreneurship. Close to 50 students have graduated from this programme, half of whom have emerged as successful entrepreneurs, according Ganesh. The ministry has earmarked around Rs 6.2 lakh per idea that is to be commercialised but the funding can go up to Rs 10 lakh in special cases, according to Ganesh.
The aim is to promote the technological advancement of MSMEs. These steps are in line with a commission set up by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which recommended the strengthening of polytechnics and IITs for rural and small town areas for linking technology with skill, launching country-wide programmes on entrepreneurship and innovation as a national movement by MSMEs and adoption of unorganised enterprises by technical colleges.
The commission has also recommended changes in the existing schemes for technological upgradation of the Ministries of Textiles and MSME.
