The Hindu Business Line : AP registers high incidence of sickness among SSIs

SICKNESS among small-scale industries (SSIs) is rather high in Andhra Pradesh. Among the registered SSI units, the percentage of closed industries is as high as 38 per cent.

Translated into numbers, the closed SSI units are a whopping 38,788 out of the total registered number of 1,02,761. The working SSIs number 63,973, according to statistics available with the State Industries Department.

The sickness seems to be particularly rampant in the districts of Hyderabad (50 per cent), Cuddapah (50 per cent), Nalgonda (48 per cent), Medak (47 per cent) and Khammam (46 per cent), as per the third census report of SSI units in the State.

In efforts to revive and rehabilitate the closed units, the State Government has appointed five institutes to go into the issues of economic viability and work out a package.

These are the National Institute for Small Industries Extension & Training (NISIET), the Small Industries Services Institute (SISI), the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Technology Consultancy Organisation (APITCO), the AP Productivity Council and the Federation of Andhra Pradesh Small Industries Association-AP SSI Centre.

These organisations have undertaken a district-wise study of the closed SSI units closed, the economic viability of their revival and rehabilitation and will submit a report by the end of July. Based on their recommendations a strategy would be devised.

The national percentage of closed units is 37.65 per cent or 8,68,021 units out of the total 23,05,725 registered units surveyed under the Third All-India Census of Small-Scale Industries by the Development Commissioner, Union Ministry of Small-Scale Industries.

For Andhra Pradesh, which has logged higher than the national percentage of units closed, the gratifying feature is that it does not find itself among the top five.

These States are Tamil Nadu (16.2 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (13.4 per cent), Kerala (8.4 per cent), Madhya Pradesh (7.4 per cent) and Maharastra (7.1 per cent). For Andhra Pradesh, the percentage of closed units is 4.2.

Under the survey, the AP Industries Department also undertook a count of the unregistered SSIs for the first time.

The exercise covered 1,546 villages and towns and a total of 16,979 units.

More Stories on : SSI | Sick Units | Andhra Pradesh

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