Industry

Employment Industries with employment opportunities identified in the manufacturing and services sectors:

Textiles

Technology Upgradation Fund (TUF) allocation enhanced from Rs435 crore to Rs535 crore. Rs189 crore to be provided for Scheme for Integrated Textiles Parks (SITP). · Jute technology mission to be launched. National Jute Board to be established.

Handlooms

Cluster Development approach to continue; 100 clusters to be added at a cost of Rs50 crore in 2006-07.
Yarn depots to be established.
'Handloom mark' certification to be launched.
Interest subsidy scheme to be provided on term loans.
Handloom sector outlay increased from Rs195 crore to Rs241 crore.

Food processing industry

Food processing a priority sector for bank credit.
NABARD to create a refinancing window with a corpus of Rs1,000 crore, especially for agro-processing infrastructure and market development.
National Institute of Food Technology Entrepreneurship and Management to be set up
Paddy Processing Research Centre, Thanjavur, to be a national-level institute.

Petroleum, chemicals and petro-chemicals

Task Force set up to facilitate development of large PC&P investment regions. Three such investment regions to be developed in 2006-07.

Information technology

Existing vehicle of viability gap funding and India Infrastructure Finance Company to provide equity and/or viability gap funding to new ventures. Window to be open for three years.

Small and medium enterprises

180 items identified for dereservation.
Services sector SMEs to be on par with manufacturing SMEs, to give impetus to lending by SIDBI.
Corpus of credit guarantee fund to be raised from Rs1,132 crore to Rs2,500 crore in five years. Credit Guarantee Trust for Small Industries to reduce guarantee fee from 2.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent for all loans.
Insurance cover to be extended to 30,000 borrowers.
10 schemes drawn up under a five-year national manufacturing competitiveness programme, including promotion of ICT, mini tool rooms, design clinics and marketing support for SMEs. Implementation to be in the PPP model.

Cluster development

Services sector

Tourism

15 tourist destinations and circuits to be developed.
50 'handicrafts, handlooms and culture' villages to be identified, close to existing destinations and circuits.
Four new institutes of hotel management to be established, in Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Jharkhand and Uttaranchal.
Plan allocation increased from Rs786 crore to Rs830 crore.

Foreign trade

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