NID designs expertise to uplift small enterprises

AHMEDABAD: For small and medium scale enterprises, chartering a course to success will now get a designer touch.
The National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad on Wednesday launched 'Design Clinic Scheme for Design Expertise'. The scheme has been launched with the support of department of Micro, Small and Medium Sector, Government of India, with a budget of Rs 73.58 crore.
It is an ambitious design intervention scheme for the country's huge micro, small and medium scale enterprises.This will combine design awareness programmes and project-based design assistance to uplift and help these units to improve their practices and designs.
The scheme was launched in New Delhi by Pradyumna Vyas, director, NID, and Madhav Lal, additional secretary and development commissioner (MSME). Also present were Dinesh Rai, secretary (MSME), who delivered the keynote address, and Shashank Mehta, senior faculty of NID who has been working on the project.
Vyas said, "This significant government assistance will help the country's MSME sector move up the value chain, from original equipment manufacturing (OEM) industries through original design manufacturing (ODM) industries to original brand manufacturing (OBM) industries, and compete in today's increasingly global markets."
The scheme aims to bring MSMEs and design expertise on a common platform to provide multi-disciplinary expert advise offering solutions for real time problems, resulting in continuous improvement and value addition for existing products.
The model brings design exposure of industry clusters for design improvement, evaluation and analysis and adopting long-term consultancy and design-related intervention.
The scheme will reach out to about 200 MSME clusters over the next two and half years through programmes under the Design Clinic Centre. The regional centres for the clinic are being set up to reach out to all parts of the country.