The Ministry of Micro,Small and Medium Enterprises will shortly announce a scheme that will encourage small-scale industries countrywide to hire designers by funding a percentage of their fees,according to sources. The National Institute of Design,Ahmedabad,will be the nodal agency for the design clinics for micro and small-scale industries. The financial support from the ministry could be as much as 50-60 per cent with the industries paying the rest,said NID director Professor Pradyumna Vyas. The scheme would be implemented in various steps. First,sensitisation programmes will be held for industries. Then,workshops on the utility of design in making their products more competent would be conducted. Finally,designers will be hired as per requirement. Shashank Mehta,professor of Industrial Design at NID,will be the chief coordinator. He said the scheme will be first launched in Delhi and spread to other cities soon after. A steering committee at the ministry level would be set up along with a committee in NID itself,and a separate secretariat may also be established,said Professor Vyas. According to Professor Mehta,the workshops would be conducted at the NID campus in Ahmedabad and elsewhere,and the aim is to conduct at least 200 such workshops in two years. The announcement would be followed with the launch of a website where designers can register themselves for being hired. The design community is a small one and there is a fairly good connectivity (among designers), Professor Mehta said. The Parliament had in 2006 first approved the scheme with a package of Rs 50 crore,he added. All types of designs from textile to industrial would be included in the clinics. Besides this,the clinics will take a pro-active role in which designers themselves could identify industries that require design expertise. The idea is to go to their doorsteps,like doctors taking house calls, Mehta said According to Professor Vyas,such a massive design intervention for small-scale industries has never been attempted before. He termed the impending announcement a major,major thing. He attributed the scheme to the government finally discovering the importance of design to make products more competitive.
