The National Productivity Council (NPC), which was entrusted with the task of working out some viable modalities to disburse the so-far-unutilized Rs 600 crore Pharmaceutical Technology Upgradation Fund (PTUF), will submit its final report to the Union chemicals ministry soon. The scheme, which was launched by the union finance ministry some time ago, had evoked poor response from the SSIs due to some unviable norms in it.
According to sources, the NPC is giving the final touches to its reports and it will be submitted to the government in 2-3 days. NPC was given the task in January this year to prepare the report for PTUF implementation in the country. For finding a viable method to disburse the fund, the NPC team had made a tour to some of the key small scale clusters like Indore, Thane, Kolkota and Ankleshwar to get a firsthand report on the functioning of the SSI sector.
The objective of the PTUF scheme is to assist the SSI units for the technological upgradation of their manufacturing facilities in compliance with the Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) as per standards fixed by Union health ministry in Schedule M of Drugs and Cosmetics Rule, 1945. Under the scheme, the government proposes to provide soft loans to the SSIs to upgrade their facilities.
The ambitious scheme ran into rough weather as there was no takers for the fund due to some unviable norms in disbursing the fund and it has been literally lying idle for some time now. Though there were several attractive features in the scheme, the rider of providing a collateral matching to that of the loan amount was proving to be major handicap for the small units.
With the SSIs getting a level playing field in the Union Budget in the form of excise reduction from 16 to 8 per cent, a large number of small scale units will be revived in the non-exempt states. There are reports that several SSI units are preparing to leave the excise free zones like Baddi in the aftermath of the excise reduction in the budget. Since all these units have to be upgraded to match the Schedule M norms, they are looking up at the PTUF scheme for funds.