The ground-breaking ceremony for a Common Facility Centre (CFC) in Bow Bazar, Kolkata took place on 30.01.2020 in the presence of Rupa Dutta, Economic Adviser, Ministry of Commerce < Industry, Pramod Agrawal, Chairman, Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) and senior officials from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, GJEPC and Swarno Shilpo Bachao Committee (SSBC).
The CFC will benefit one lakh artisans engaged in the manufacture of handmade jewellery in and around Bowbazar, a major jewellery hub of Kolkata. The CFC at Bow Bazar will enhance the productivity and quality of products, especially the small gem and jewellery units in Bow Bazar and its surrounding areas by introducing cutting edge technology in jewellery manufacturing amongst the karigars of the industry in the Kolkata gem < jewellery cluster.
Ministry of Commerce < Industry has taken a host of initiatives at the grassroots level for increasing the efficiency and empowering the MSMEs of the Indian gem and jewellery industry. Apart from introducing trade-friendly policies for the sector, the Ministry is also facilitating the industry through creation of infrastructure in the form of CFCs.
Setting up of CFCs across the country to help the marginal workers to upgrade their product quality and output have been carried out through Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) with the help of Local Trade Association (LTA) of the respective manufacturing hubs. The Council has already set up CFCs at major diamond clusters in Gujarat like Amreli, Palanpur, Visnagar and Junagadh. These CFCs are operational and have made the MSME units export worthy. A jewellery CFC is also being set up at Coimbatore and is expected to be completed by March 2020.
The objective of setting up CFCs is to give the small and medium jewellery manufacturing units access to a common pool of high-end and capital-intensive state-of-the-art machinery/equipment which is otherwise unaffordable for individual small and medium jewellery manufacturers.
Economic Advisor, Ministry of Commerce