Mumbai: The Common Facility Centres (CFC) Project Steering Committee, which includes representatives from the Ministry of Commerce & Industry and India’s Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC), met on 8th July, 2020, to review the status of the upcoming six new CFCs.

The six locations for setting up CFCs in Phase II are Coimbatore, Kolkata, Jaipur, Delhi, Rajkot and Hyderabad. The Committee meeting that was held under the chairmanship of Colin Shah, observed that the fit-out work of CFCs in Coimbatore and Kolkata is likely to be completed by October 2020, while the other four centres are expected to be made operational by December 2020.

The goal of the CFCs is to help the Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) by giving them access to capital-intensive state-of-the-art technology at affordable rates to upgrade their manufacturing processes and speed up prodcutivity; enhance the quality of finished products; upgrade skills and design  — all of which will help them procure export orders.

The Steering Committee also monitored the functioning of the four existing CFCs in Amreli, Palanpur, Visnagar and Junagadh in Gujarat, and noted that due to the impact of Covid-19 and the subsequent global recession, the four existing centres are facing challenges to meet their operational expenses. It was decided that GJEPC will represent the matter to the Ministry of Commerce & Industry to support the functional centres keeping in mind the unprecedented situation.