Guest Column

A mission is most ideal, if there exists one or several common problems for which dedicated and integrated initiatives are sought, eg. literacy, drinking water, leprosy etc. Are there any such shared technological problems common to SSIs? The term technology8217; is not only generic but abstract also. In reality its manifestations in plant and machinery are found to vary widely across industries.

Are the technological problems of ice-cream manufacturers the same as or even similar to those of garment manufacturers? Is technological obsolescence of electricalappliance units and of the electronics units of the same nature? Do soft drink manufacturers share any technological problem with meat processing units? Are there anything common between the technologies of machine tools units and leather and footwear units, except that the later is the customer of the former? Or between those of handlooms and potteries? Or even between those of auto parts units and bicycle parts manufactures?

Clearly the answers are on the negative. Yet, they are all referred to as technological problems of SSIs. This technological heterogeneity among SSIs reflected itself in the inability to evolve a universally acceptable definition of SSIs in terms of their technological characteristics. World wide SSIs are defined in terms of either investment or employment or both.How then is it possible on the part of a single umbrella organization to network with all the relevant institutions? By their very nature, technological problems are unique to each industry group, if not to each unit. There,thus, arises a case for as many technology missions as there are discernible industry groups with reasonable degree of homogeneity of processes and products. This obviously is impractical.

At present, is there any void of institutions to deal with the technical problems of SSIs which the proposed mission could effectively fill in? The answer is on the negative, because there already exists a vast network; viz. of Small Industries Service Institutes SISI along with a host of tool rooms and testing centres under the Development Commissioner for SSI, charged with the specific responsibility of sourcing technical inputs to SSIs. In addition, there are also the state governments promoted consultancy outfits to source technical inputs to SSIs.

For known reasons, these networks remains ineffective and therefore are a burden to the exchequer. Obviously, creation of another organization with the same mission is unlikely to be an ideal solution in the Indian context. On the contrary, there is a strong case foreliminating the handicaps which render the existing network ineffective.

That, perhaps, would involve re-positioning the network in a competitive market. But, is it feasible to position SSI support institutions in a competitive environment when SSIs themselves are sought to be promoted under highly protected market conditions?

The author is director research in National Productivity Council and the views are personal.