Hyderabad: Industrial health clinics have been set up in Telangana to revive sick micro, small and medium industries (MSMI). Industries minister K.T. Rama Rao informed the Legislative Assembly on Friday that Telangana has become the first state in the country to introduce the novel concept of industrial health clinics to revive these industries. He said the state government had granted a corpus of '100 crore to revive sick MSMIs, which are the major job providers in the state.
“Thousands of MSMIs had turned sick in the Telangana region in undivided Andhra Pradesh. This was mainly because of power holidays imposed by the then government due to power shortage. This resulted in lakhs losing their jobs. Within six months of the formation of Telangana state, we were able to overcome the power shortage. The Telangana State government now wants to revive these sick MSMIs so that they can generate employment for people and contribute to the state’s economy. For this, we have come up with an idea to set up industrial health clinics,” he said.
He said the Centre appreciated this novel concept and has assured financial assistance to the state government. “We expect the Centre to extend 50 per cent funds for these clinics. We also urged the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to restrain banks from declaring MSMIs bankrupt just because they defaulted on repayment of loan instalments for two or three months. Banks should conduct techno-economic viability study of these units before declaring them as non-performing assets,” Mr Rao added.
He said the clinics will also undertake a study to revive MSMIs and provide subsidised loans, marketing and branding support to them. “These clinics will be brought under Non-Banking Financial Company to be set up by the government and a full-fledged CEO will be appointed to oversee their functioning,” Mr Rao said.
