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Speakers at a workshop on ‘Facilitating Technology Acquisition’ stressed the need to promote and acquire technology for driving innovation.
Joint Secretary in the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research under the Ministry of Science and Technology K. Jayakumar urged the entrepreneurs here to unleash the potential of Coimbatore. ‘It is high time we make certain changes to sustain and nourish growth. Look at China and Korea for instance. They seem to be leveraging new technology more aggressively, whereas, here, we don’t seem to think beyond our domestic market.’ Advocating the participants on the need to challenge in the global market place rather than challenging our own frontiers, Jayakumar said ‘look at new ways of harnessing our own technology. We have numerous unsung heroes and a spectrum of technology which can be leveraged.’
‘Technologies that are developed are yet to reach the commercial platform. And, we do not have a repository of our own achievements or indigenous case studies to cite,’ the Joint Secretary lamented.
He urged the participants to start something on the lines of a cloud sourcing model and work on collective and collaborative research. ‘We have not perfected the delivery system,’ he added. The day-long workshop was organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry in association with the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.
General Manager of District industries Centre Asokan said there were around 35,000 registered MSMEs and multiple unregistered MSME units in Coimbatore district.
‘Getting financial assistance or subsidy has not been an issue for the MSMEs. There were various other constraints that these units face to sustain themselves,’ he said, adding ‘the MSMEs will be evaluated by the number of technology transfers and patents they acquire.’
Jayakumar Ramdass, Past Chairman, CII - Coimbatore zone and Managing Director of Mahendra Pumps, observed that the competitiveness of the Indian MSMEs was productivity-driven, whereas those in the developed countries were technology-driven. ‘It is time to look at technology-deficient area; a focused segmented policy approach will enhance the sector’s growth prospects,’ he said.
>revathy.lakshminarasimhan@thehindu.co.in
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