Jawhar Sircar, Additional Secretary and Development Commissioner for Small Scale Industries, Union Government said, 'Time is ripe to take some positive steps to give thrust for Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) sector.

Addressing a seminar on 'IT for SME manufacturing', organised by the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) in the city recently, he said, 'IT has now become a recipe for the development of many manufacturing clusters, which remained unorganised for years. Only a few of the SME sector were IT-enabled. The impact of information technology is showing some signs of growth in manufacturing sectors.'

He said that certain clusters like auto components (Pune), drugs and pharmaceuticals (Ahmedabad), textiles (Tirupur), pumps and motors (Coimbatore), bicycle (Ludhiana), machine and tools (Rajkot), leather (Shantiniketan, West Bengal), readymade garments (Delhi), hand tools (Jalandhar) and electric fans (Hyderabad) were chosen for the pilot interventions.

Earlier, Ar Rm Arun, convenor, IT and Communication panel of FICCI, presented an audio-video presentation of the importance of IT in the SME manufacturing sector in India.

Speaking at the seminar, M Raman, Commissioner, Industries and Commerce, Tamilnadu government said, 'IT means growth in the SME sector. Due to various reasons like cost and mobility of skilled manpower, the penetration level is much low. We should find a solution to full-scale implementation of the technology for a steady growth.'