Tamil Nadu - Vellore   

Stone laid for common facility centre

  VELLORE: The foundation stone for the Rs.9.27-crore common facility centre (CFC) of the engineering cluster in Ranipet was laid by A. Chandrababu, Executive Director, Boiler Auxiliaries Plant (BAP), Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), Ranipet at the Thiruvalam-Ponnai Road near Ranipet on Thursday.

The CFC, which is being established with grants of Rs.619.39 lakh from the Union Government and Rs.97.21 lakh from the Tamil Nadu Government, would come up on a 6.5-acre site located in the villages of Sripadanallur and Thenpalli, and purchased by Vellore Energy Technologist (P) Ltd. (VET), which is the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), that is to execute the project.

According to R. Amirthakatesan, Chairman of VET, the 24th Steering Committee of MSE-CDP (Micro Small Enterprises-Cluster Development Programme) approved the project at its meeting held in New Delhi on December 24. The Central and State grants would be utilised for the purchase of machinery. The SPV itself has contributed Rs.109.35 lakh, while it would be raising a bank loan of Rs.104.13 lakh for the construction of the buildings to house the machinery and other facilities.

The VET Chairman said that the establishment of the BHEL/BAP led to the setting up of several engineering industries in the micro small medium enterprises (MSME) sector in and around Ranipet, resulting in the economic development of Ranipet and surrounding villages, besides the development of education facilities, health sector, transport and trade in the region. The presence of so many MSME units in the engineering sector brought for them the status of SIPCOT (State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu) Engineering Cluster, under the CDP of the Union Ministry of MSME. The project report was submitted to the Central government through the State government by including the machineries in consultation with the BHEL, which is the major industry to which the MSME units were supplying machinery components, he said.

K.G. Raghunathan, Managing Director of VET, said that the objective of establishing the VET was to encourage the development of micro engineering industries with an investment of less than Rs.25 lakh. The CFC would comprise fabrication-cum-machine shop facilities, testing centre equipped with laboratory facility for testing the quality of raw materials and finished goods, skill development centre for training to upgrade the skills of the workers in the member units, research & development facility to meet the power sector engineering requirements, and the facility for complementing the process at the firm level for high-end work.

The testing centre would carry out non-destructive test, hardness test, welding quality test, crack test, calibration and X-ray, while the skill development centre would facilitate the upgrading of the skills of machine operators, fitters, welders, gas cutters, lab technicians, supervisors, and software (Auto CAD) personnel.

Mr. Chandrababu said that the BHEL, Ranipet would extend to the cluster all possible advice and help in its growth. He wanted the CFC to be utilised by the micro industries. Thanks to the BHEL possessing orders for the next nine years, the order position of the micro industries would increase in future. A. Muthuvezhappan, Deputy Director, MSME-Development Institute, Chennai said that the CFC in Ranipet was the 11th to be established by MSME under the CDP in Tamil Nadu. Sigamani, Senior Manager, Canara Bank, Ranipet said that the bank was happy to finance the cluster for the construction of the buildings and to meet the working capital requirements of the project. M.P. Jayakumar and C.V. Rajagopal, Assistant General Managers of BHEL, Ranipet spoke.

S. Sivagnanam, Director, MSME-DI, who presided, advised the MSME sector to utilise the opportunity and come up with innovative proposals for implementing the cluster schemes in Tamil Nadu. Matches, coir, automobiles and wet grinder are the other clusters being implemented in Tamil Nadu, he said.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Stone laid for common facility centre
CMC plans events to mark World TB Day
Mega blood donation camp
National Workshop on Embedded System Design and Programming

Copyright © 2011, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu