Large companies should take the partnership role in imparting knowledge of intellectual property (IP) to the small and medium enterprises (SME) and creating a plan for SMEs, said Dr. Chandra Pal, IAS, Secretary, Ministry of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises, Government of India at a seminar cum workshop on IP Management in SMEs – 'Identify and Exploit IP to Multiply Business Advantage', organized by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
Intellectual Property will be given top priority by his ministry and the government in the 11th plan period, said Dr. Pal. A lot of creativity and innovation gets initiated at the grass root level and therefore a mass awareness programme on IPR should be initiated for MSMEs, said Dr. Pal. CII must take up the responsibility of educating MSMEs on innovation and idea protection following a mission mode approach, he added.
He said that process to develop skilled manpower should be increased 10 times to meet the country's need. Dr. Pal mentioned that in order to sustain the growth trend of MSME sector achieved over the last decade, at least 50 lac skilled manpower per annum should be available to the SMEs as per the proposal forwarded by the Ministry of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises in the 11th five year plan.
Dr. Pal suggested that SME sector can largely get the benefit of the promotion of clusters instead of SEZs and the government is ready to assist with up to 80% subsidy for the cluster promotion.
He also said that innovation must be rewarded and there should be focus on recognising the contribution of SMEs in innovation and development of new products.
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