LIDCAP to play role of facilitator

hyderabad:in a major shift in its policy, the leather industries corporation of andhra pradesh lidcap) has decided to withdraw from manufacturing and marketing of leather goods and instead play a role of facilitator to small and medium scale entrepreneurs in the state. having failed to face competition from the private companies and with the government departments deciding not to procure goods from lidcap, the corporation has been incurring losses.presently, the corporation is not in a position to pay the salaries to its 150 employees. the financial position is so bad that we are not in a position to pay salaries.we have four manufacturing units, which are running in losses. hence, we decided to phase out those units and act as promoter of leather industry, lidcap vicechairman and managing director tenneti krishna prasad said. the lidcap, established in october 1973 with the objective of promoting the leather industry and help 40 lakh-odd artisans, has failed to sustain the objectives. the state government at one stage thought of closing down the corporation or privatise it eight months back. however, with a reorientation of policy, better days appear to be in store for the employees. the officials have submitted a set of proposals for a new role of lidcap in the leather sector. a presentation on these was made to chief minister n chandrababu naidu recently. the highlights of the proposals include: bottom to top approach, evolving training programme to flayers, cobblers and tannery workers, prepare a leather policy, micro-financing to the artisans and development of infrastructure. about 10 per cent of the total raw material needed for the country's leather industry is available in the andhra pradesh. but, most of it is exported to other states for processing. if the facilities for processing could be made available in the state, it would generate employment to hundreds of people, krishna prasad said. to start with, the lidcap has decided to provide state of the art training to artisans in collaboration with the european commission's asia-investment programme.