Indian govt approves revamped SFURTI

The Government of India has approved the revamped Scheme of Fund for Regeneration of Traditional Industries (SFURTI) with modified norms for continuation upto 2017.

 

The SFURTI scheme was launched in 2005-06 for making traditional industries (including khadi, handloom coir and other industries) more productive and competitive by organizing these industries and artisans into clusters.

 

Under the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17), it is proposed to take up 800 clusters with funding from the Government of India and Asian Development Bank.

 

Under the revamped SFURTI, there shall be three types of clusters involving artisans from 500 to 2500.  The three types of clusters would be named Heritage clusters, Major clusters, and Mini clusters. 

 

Initially, in the first phase, 71 clusters will be developed across the country involving an outlay of Rs. 1.494 billion. Of these, 2 will be Heritage clusters involving 1,000-2,500 artisans, 10 Major clusters each having 500-1,000 artisans, and 59 Mini clusters having less than 500 artisans.

 

The time frame for the implementation of the project for each cluster will be three years and the funding pattern under the scheme has provision for soft interventions, including skill training, capacity building, design development, etc., hard interventions, including Common Facility Centres, Raw Material Banks(RMB), training centres, etc., and cross cutting thematic interventions, which include brand building & promotion, news media marketing, e-commerce, innovation, R&D initiatives and developing linkages between clusters.

 

In addition to Khadi and Village Industries Commission and Coir Board as nodal agencies for their respective clusters, the revamped SFURTI also provides for engagement of reputed national/ regional level institutions with sectoral expertise in the major sub-sectors of the traditional industries, as Nodal Agency.  

 

The scheme also provides for engaging the services of reputed national/ regional level institutions with proven expertise in artisanal and small enterprise cluster developments as Technical Agencies to provide handholding and implementation support to the SFURTI clusters.