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  • TN chalks out new MSME policy

    Envisages generation of one million direct and indirect opportunities The plethora of subsidies and incentives announced in the new exclusive policy for the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) sector by the Tamil Nadu government will create a large employment potential. New opportunities will be thrown open for artisans, ITI and diploma holders in the state to come and set up their own units, according to small industry associations. Tamil Nadu has unveiled a separate policy for the MSME sector with a vision to enhance the competitiveness of the sector and aim for a sustained annual growth rate of over 10 per cent for MSMEs. The new MSME policy, apart from encouraging agro-based industries, envisages generation of one million direct and indirect employment opportunities during the 11th Five Year Plan. The new MSME policy pampers tiny manufacturing units with capital subsidy on plant and machinery, low-tension power tariff subsidy, subsidy on assessed VAT and stamp duty exemption. Over and above this, the additional subsidies for units set up by women entrepreneurs, physically disabled persons and trans-gender entrepreneurs will be highly rewarding and encouraging, says S Srinivasan, president, Ambattur Industrial Estate Manufacturers' Association. New entrepreneurs and the small scale sector could reap the benefits of the current policy and become a regular feeder sector for the vibrant medium and large-scale sector, especially active in the automobile and engineering sectors in the state, he adds. K Gopalakrishnan, honourary general secretary of Tamil Nadu Small and Tiny Industries Association, says the policy will give fillip to the MSME eco-system in the state. The subsidy schemes will help small industry upgrade technology and machinery, thereby enhancing their competitiveness. The purpose of announcing a separate policy for the MSME sector is to make it co-exist with large industries as well as accelerate industrial growth and generate large-scale job opportunities, especially in the rural and backward areas, says P Selvam, secretary, small industry, government of Tamil Nadu. "With this new policy, we expect MSME sector contribution to the total exports from Tamil Nadu to go up substantially from the present 35 per cent,' he adds. Growing industrial demand has driven expansion by several units in the industrial estates, which are considered the growth engines of small and medium enterprises in and around Chennai. However, the units point out that land is not readily available for these units and expansion to other areas will prove to be unviable. The MSME policy prescribes, among other incentives and subsidies, reservation of 20 per cent of the land in all SIPCOT (Tamil Nadu Small Industries Development Corporation) industrial estates for MSMEs and upto 30 per cent for micro industries within SIDCO estates. This initiative is expected to help the small industry in a big way. Small industry bodies have for long pointed out that skyrocketing land prices caused by rampant SEZ promotion is affecting small industry growth. The policy also talks of enacting an Industrial Single Window Clearance Act for single window committees at the state and district levels and authority for setting time periods for approvals. The state government also plans to develop 22 new industrial estates in several parts of the state. Presently, there are about 78 industrial estates in Tamil Nadu. Locations for the new industrial estates have been identified and the government has also acquired lands for the these new estates. Lauding the state government for announcing a policy for revival of sick MSMEs, Srinivasan urges the government to undertake a detailed study on the causes of sickness. He points out that a primary cause for sickness is non-payment of supplier bills by medium and large industries; besides, lack of financial support, non-availability of technology, product process obsolescence, interrupted power supply and labour issues. The MSME sector in Tamil Nadu accounts for over 95 per cent of all industrial units, about 40 per cent of the output in the manufacturing sector and 35 per cent of exports. There were about 5,30,000 registered micro and small scale units as on March, 2007, providing employment to over 37 lakh people with a total investment of around Rs 16,817 crore. There is also a substantial unregistered sector of over 600,000 units which serves as a nursery for entrepreneurial talent, according to the MSME policy statement.

  • But who manages the managers?

    But who manages the managers?

    THIS book provides a good overall perspective on the world's forests and the political economy of forest management. Authors with broad experience in many fields present diverse views on key

  • The precarious geopolitics of phosphorous

    The precarious geopolitics of phosphorous

    Both nitrogen and phosphorous are essential to life. Lynchpins both to global food production, circulating through synthesis or export and then through croplands and food into

  • Saving forests for Posterity

    Saving forests for Posterity

    Community based systems in Orissa ore effectively managing local forest resources, but they need support to overcome the conflicts and contradictions that arise.

  • Killer chlorine

    Killer chlorine

    Once hailed as a boon to health, chlorine is now charged with being carcinogenic, maiming the immune and the reproductive systems.

  • Taking science to the market

    ALL THROUGH the second half of the 20th century, whenever Western governments have seen their industries lagging behind globally, they have resorted to updating their technology policies. The result

  • It's dark outside the TV grab

    In this day of television grabs, policies are about slugfests. The logic of the grab is that any discussion must be heated, with sharply divided positions clear proponents and opponents. It is a

  • Food versus fodder

    Food versus fodder

    Increasing livestock in the Asian countries could result In lower foodgrain production

  • Will imposition of green taxes be viable?

    Will imposition of green taxes be viable?

    Down To Earth"s round table on fiscal instruments to manage the environment brought together economists, environmentalists and representatives from industry. What emerged was that the concept of economic instruments, though still at a nascent stage, is b

  • Democratising a democracy

    Sustainability is the result of a socio political process which encourages learning from past mistakes and forces decision makers to change mid course

  • Winds of changes

    Winds of changes

    Indian industrialists and scientists want the country"s property rights to be "strengthened", but the powerful drugs industry wants to maintain the status quo

  • More reasons for efficiency

    More reasons for efficiency

    Resource efficiency improves the quality of life. We can see better with efficient lighting systems, keep food fresher in efficient refrigerators, produce better goods in efficient factories,

  • How green were the forests...

    How green were the forests...

    The van panchayats of the Uttar Pradesh hills were created to restore the vital link between villagers and their forests. Today, they are prime takeover targets of the forest and revenue departments, whose main aim is to exploit the forests. KOSHY CHERAIL

  • The lone crusader

    The lone crusader

    From social worker, to government contractor, to politician, and then to the highest political station of the state. It has been an interesting journey.

  • In search of East India Company

    In search of East India Company

    Ours is a corporate age. And amid the fertile arguments on how to tame and transform today's corporation, there is a sense that current era of business dominance is somehow unique. But there was a time when corporations really ruled the world, and among

  • Passing USA`s laugh test

    Passing USA's laugh test

    Helping George Bush gain political mileage seemed to be the overriding concern at the recent climate convention negotiations in New York. India stood alone on the issue of apportioning global sinks

  • An agenda of incoherence

    An agenda of incoherence

    The grossly inadequate education as imparted in our schools has to answer for our general insensitivity towards the environment

  • Then and now...

    Then and now...

    RITA ANAND explores how a megacity civilisation of Central American Indians Had survived on natural resource management, and what needs to be done to Salvage the system

  • Getting It Right

    Loan waiver for farmers is a good beginning M K Venu A former bureaucrat who had worked with finance minister P Chidambaram in 1997 summed up the 2008-09 Budget aptly in the words of Edmund Burke: "Mere parsimony is not economy. Expenses and great expenses may be an essential part in true economy'. The bureaucrat in question, former revenue secretary N K Singh, had then designed one of the most liberal tax amnesty schemes for the urban rich with a view to mainstreaming sources of black money generation. The amnesty programme had later prompted even the Supreme Court to comment that such schemes must not become regular practice. Those were difficult times when a prolonged growth slump in much of Asia had led to sluggish revenue collections year after year. Budget targets were rarely met, if at all. Consequently, the government had to resort to amnesty schemes, in desperation, to collect more revenues. Things have dramatically changed in recent years. Asia is fast becoming the engine of growth, and India is a big part of the story. The government's revenues have soared from about Rs 2,54,000 crore in 2003-04 to Rs 5,85,000 crore in 2007-08, more than doubling in four years. With its coffers overflowing, the UPA government has chosen to embark on a "great expenses' programme. And why not? If you could give amnesty to the rich in difficult times, why not amnesty to the poor, distressed farmers when the coffers are full up? The Rs 60,000 crore farm loan waiver may have some design flaws, but no one today should quarrel with the sentiment that agriculture, and the small farmer, do need a leg-up. Clearly, the distress in the farm sector in recent years has created an adverse political climate for the UPA, which has been a bit shy of selling more aggressively the unprecedented GDP growth India has seen in the past five years. It is obvious that you cannot sell high GDP growth and bulging forex reserves in large parts of rural India which are in distress. This had also become a cause of persistent friction between the Congress and the Left within the UPA alliance. All this while, it would appear, it is this political tension which had resulted in the growing communication gap between the Congress and the Left. This may have had its spillover effect even on the nuclear deal. The Left would seem to have been somewhat assuaged by the Budget proposals. The CPM general secretary Prakash Karat has for the first time welcomed the farm and social sector programmes announced by the finance minister. This may signal a temporary thaw in the relations between the Congress and CPM. There is talk that the nuclear deal may also get revived, and the Left may not do any more than make some routine noises over it. The larger issue is one of creating a conducive atmosphere in the political economy to build a consensus for further reforms that are critical for India's economy to sustain a 9 per cent growth for the next five years. The massive farm loan waiver and higher spending in social sector programmes must be appropriately used now to bring down the political opposition to further reforms which are important to propel India to the next level in the globalisation sweepstakes. The Budget in some ways has signalled a New Deal, in which every section of society has benefited, whether it's the urban middle class or the rural poor. But these benefits must now be accompanied with some obligation to work towards a common goal. The one common objective, with which the CPM must have no quarrel, is promoting higher levels of industrialisation. The CPM has also formally recorded in its party document that rapid industrialisation is necessary and there is an urgent need to move people from low yield agriculture to industry. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh too has been placing repeated emphasis on this. The only caution that needs to be exercised is this process must be conducted in a democratic, bottom-up fashion. This was the prime lesson of Nandigram and Singur. The farm loan waiver must be seen as a purely temporary relief and there must be some programme by which farm families locked in low-yielding, suboptimal farm activity are moved to non-farm sectors. After one loan waiver, there is no point in their getting into another loan to do unremunerative agriculture. This would be a recipe for future fiscal disasters. Some permanent institutional arrangement must be designed by the Centre and states together to ensure that inherently remunerative farm activity gets a boost with technical, marketing and financial support. The other farm families must be encouraged through new skill development programmes to move to the manufacturing sector. This needs to be done in a focused manner. The Left Front government in West Bengal has designed an elaborate scheme, after the farmer protests in Nandigram, which seeks to handhold farm families for years after their shift to manufacturing townships built on their land. If done democratically, this is the only way to design a long-term solution to the problems of India's farm sector. A rapidly globalising economy just cannot afford 60 per cent of its population in agriculture sharing less than 20 per cent of the national income. This will remain the biggest point of tension in our political economy. The massive farm loan waiver in the Budget only addresses the symptom. Much more needs to be done to address the root cause. The Rs 60,000 crore loan waiver, at least, brings the whole issue to the centre stage. That is clearly a plus.

  • Death of the Indus delta

    Death of the Indus delta

    It was from the port towns of this region that Arab dhows laden with merchandise set sail for distant towns in the days of yore. Today, these towns lie deserted -- an eloquent comment on the ecological devastation that has visited the Indus del

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