First CCC Meeting

Mr. Girish Sethi (Project Coordinator/Director IEEST, TERI, New Delhi) welcomed the participants and highlighted the importance of Cluster Coordination Committee for successful implementation of the project. Mr. Vivek Malhotra (DGM, SIDBI Chandigarh) in his opening remarks briefed that Mohali-Panchkula-Chandigarh cluster is around 25-30 years old and is not listed as cluster in UNIDO list etc, but since the cluster is sensitive to technology advancement therefore it has been included by SIDBI in its scheme. He advised TERI to plan intervention in following crucial areas:

Increase in market, as currently the cluster is supplying its products mainly within 100 kilometer radius
Technological advancement, as the cluster is still using mostly the conventional machines
Skill up gradation, as there is scarcity of trained operators and workers

TERI cluster development team made the presentation of diagnostic study findings and proposed action plan for the period August 2009 – March 2010 and members discussed the following issues:-

The major issue is untimely payments by the OEMs. In most of the cases the payment is released after 90 days and if the payment is made earlier than 2 % - 3.5% amount is deducted from the payments. Mr. Vivek highlighted the importance of CGTSI (Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Small Industries), CGTMSE (credit Guarantee Fund trust for Micro and Small Enterprises) schemes and advised the entrepreneurs to avail these facilities.
Rate of interest charged by the banks for micro units. It has been decided that this issue should be taken in other forums such as RBI SME empowered committee etc.
It has been decided that an workshop / open house will be organized to increase awareness of entrepreneurs on financial schemes of government and financial institutions
Professor Thareja stressed on the importance of skill development for workers and urged the entrepreneurs to be forthcoming for this initiative
Mr. B.S. Anand said that lack of motivation is a major hurdle for the advancement of MSME units and they generally lack vision in the fact that together they can do wonders. He also advised the project to look for synergies with on-going e-governance initiative by gtz in the cluster and to register consultants in the proposed web-portal based under this project based on their performance.
The proposed action plan has been approved by the cluster coordination committee.

Record of discussion

Cluster Coordination Committee meeting on 6^th August 2009 at Hotel Shivalik View, Chandigarh

Meeting attended by

Mr. Vivek Malhotra, Deputy General Manager, SIDBI Chandigarh

Prof. P. Thareja, Head Metallurgical Engineering Department, PEC University of Technology, Chandigarh

Dr. Gunmala Suri, Reader, University Business School, Punjab University Chandigarh

Mr. K.L. Sarkar, MSME Foundation New Delhi

Mr. B.S. Anand, President, Mohali Industries association, Mohali

Mr. Vishnu Goel, General Secretary, Haryana Chamber of Commerce and Industries, Panchkula

Mr. Arun Mahajan, President Industries Association of Chandigarh

Mr. A.L. Aggarwal, President Chandigarh Industrial Fasteners Association,

Mr. P.L. Aggarwal, Ex-President, Industries Association of Chandigarh