The Hindu Business Line : SIEMA to build business centre

A BLUEPRINT for establishing a business centre at a cost of Rs 50 lakh has been prepared by the Southern India Engineering Manufacturers' Association (SIEMA), Coimbatore, to provide the latest communication facilities for use by its members.

The organisation, which has completed the first phase of its Common Facility Centre (CFC) on its premises with SIDBI's assistance, is confident of completing the second phase before the end of the current fiscal while the business centre work would be taken up in the third phase.

According to Mr G. Rajendran, President, SIEMA, the CFC would provide details on Indian and international standards relating to motors, pumps, test methods for different products, material specifications, dimensional requirements etc and help impart training to the members of the engineering industry. The manufacturers would be able to benchmark their products against international norms for a correct quality assessment to compete in international markets.

He said the CFC now has data relating to IEC (European Standards) DIN (German Standards), ASTM (American Standards), BS (British Standards) and ISO Standards. It was also equipped with multimedia facility.

The first phase has been completed at a cost of Rs 6.26 lakh, of which Rs 5 lakh has come as grant from SIDBI while the rest was spent by SIEMA. The second phase envisages an expenditure of about Rs 9 lakh and would be completed by March 2005.

Mr Rajendran said SIEMA has planned to establish a business centre equipped with modern audio/video facilities apart from tele-conferencing and e-facilities. This is expected to cost about Rs 50 lakh. While SIEMA would look for assistance from outside, he was also confident of SIEMA taking up this work on its own and cited the case the Golden Jubilee block that it built at a cost of Rs 40 lakh without any external aid.

He said it was the Bureau of Indian Standards that initially mooted the concept of a CFC in Coimbatore, because of the presence of a large number of engineering industries in the region. BIS earned a sizeable income as marking fee from the engineering industry but somehow it lost interest in the project and SIEMA's request for financial aid from BIS did not meet with success.

However, he hoped that BIS would appreciate the fact that the region contributed significantly to its revenue and would come forward to support the CFC as it would bring more industries to quality circle leading to additional revenue to BIS.

Mr V. Chandrasekaran, Chief General Manager, Southern Zonal Office, SIDBI, Chennai, inaugurated the Common Facility Centre here today.

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