The Kerala Financial Corporation (KFC) will host the next COSIDICI national level meeting, on July 9, Tuesday, in Thiruvananthapuram, to finalize the business plan of State Financial Corporations (SFCs) in the country.
COSIDICI is the Council of State Industrial Development and Investment Corporations of India and was established in the year 1976 as a federation of 18 State Financial Corporations (SFCs), 29 State Industrial Development Corporations (SIDCs) and 9 State Industrial Infrastructure & Investment Corporations (SIICs).
“SFCs were set up more than five decades ago with the objective of promoting small and medium enterprises for achieving balanced regional growth. The SFCs were performing very well in the first 3-4 decades, but fortunes of many of SFCs declined after opening up of the economy in 1990s. Now COSIDICI is taking efforts to revitalize the SFCs,” Sanjeev Kaushik, the Chairman and Managing Director of KFC, who is also the Principal Secretary (Finance) to Government of Kerala, said.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had constituted an Expert Committee on MSMEs under the chairmanship of UK Sinha, to suggest long term solutions for the growth of the MSME sector. A meeting of this Expert Committee was held on March 29 in Delhi. Smita Bharadwaj, MD, Madhya Pradesh Financial Corporation, representing SFCs as President, COSIDICI, had attended the meeting and made a presentation about the working and problems of SFCs. NITI Aayog had also entrusted the consultancy firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) with the task to examine the factors affecting MSME sector with special focus on revitalizing SFCs.
“The meeting scheduled for Tuesday will finalize the plan to revitalize the SFCs. The MSME sector contributes 40% to India’s exports and 45% to the country’s industrial output and SFCs have played a pivotal role in the overall promotion and development of this sector. It is a fact that some of the units financed by SFCs in the country have become big industrial groups now, and they include Infosys, Biocon, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, Cremicaetc,” Kaushik added.
