Government Ready To Push Innovation
S Vishnu Sharmaa, INN/Chennai, @Svs037
The stress is now on knowledge that can take India to the next level, said A R Sihag, secretary, Department of Heavy Industry. He was speaking at IIT-Madras Research Park premises on August 30 after inaugurating Advanced Manufacturing Technology Development Centre (AMTDC) there.
AMTDC undertakes Research and Development (R&D) in the areas of sophisticated and high precision machine tools, smart manufacturing platform for production processes, low-cost automation and robotic systems and mechatronic modules for machine tools besides improving the technology base / ready-to-use technologies for Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME).
The Centre is established over an area of 9,000 sq. ft. and it houses technologies developed over the last three years with six industrial partners.
India has progressed and reached a level where per capita income has reached a level of 2000 USD, this is a point where stagnation can be a bothering issue.
A few Latin American nations have come to a point where they could not move ahead after achieving the mark of 2000 USD per capita income, as knowledge did not receive an impetus, he reminded.
When progress is the desire, we should have to develop knowledge that can come in the common good. AMTDC is a step towards harnessing knowledge for the common good of the economy, he said.
It (AMTDC) is a fine example of industry-academia-government collaboration that has come to solve complex problems and this can set the Indian manufacturing sector on a higher growth trajectory. We are working on the next stage of the scheme under which this centre was funded, and in Phase 2, we are giving ambitious scaling up targets such as five-fold increase in outlay.
We would like to give concrete ideas and I would like the stakeholders to share their inputs on what the DHI can take up for Phase 2 of this initiative. These efforts are done towards the common good of developing our economy, country and society.
If we are to avoid the ‘Middle income trap,’ we need successful models, like the one used to create AMTDC, and replicate it on a larger scale, identifying bigger problems of the industry and work towards solving them, said Sihag.
Director of IIT-Madras Bhaskar Ramamurthi said This Centre gives us great pride and we are delighted to create this kind of translational centre that works tightly with the Industry.
Machine Tool sector in India comprises a large number of medium-sized companies. What keeps these companies going is their R&D and their products, which are ahead of the curve. AMTDC has been set up with generous help from Department of Heavy Industry to bolster the R&D capabilities of these companies. This collaborative work will help MSMSEs stay ahead of the curve, he said.
