All India Rural Industry Consulatancy Services under REGP launched
The Government has launched the Rural Industry Consultancy Services (RICS) under the Rural Employment Generation Programme (REGP) throughout the country from today. Launching the scheme at a function here today, the Minister of State for Agro & Rural Industries, Shri Sangh Priya Gautam said that 50 selected State/Regional offices and Multi Disciplinary Training Centres and Non-Departmental Training Centres under the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) throughout the country will start RICS from today. The Minister aid that REGP was launched for providing more and more new avenues of employment to rural unemployed people in the countryside. Of late, it was felt that financing is not enough and necessary support services should be provided to rural entrepreneurs so that project can be properly prepared, implemented and successfully run on long term basis, he said.
The broad objectives of the scheme are to generate employment in rural areas, develop entrepreneurial skill among the rural unemployed youth, to achieve the goal of rural industrialisation and to facilitate financial institutions to mobilize higher credit flow for rural industries. Some of the main features of the RICS scheme are; Readymade project profiles will be made available to the prospective beneficiaries on demand; If the beneficiary so desires the RICS cell will prepare project report on behalf of the beneficiaries; Making liaison work with other agencies on behalf of the beneficiaries for establishment of projects; Providing necessary knowledge to the prospective beneficiaries on procurement of raw-materials, machinery, installation, quality control, marketing aspects and other feed back; Arranging support from other agencies/local authorities as needed by the entrepreneur still starting of the unit.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Mahesh Sharma, Chairman of KVIC, said that since launching of REGP scheme, 1,72,650 entrepreneurial units have been set up till December, 2003 which provided employment to more than 20 lakh people so far. More than Rs. 3,788 crore-credit mobilization has taken place for successful functioning of these units, he added.
(Release ID :663)