Scaling up 1000 VSME through VLMi

VLMi (Visionary Laghu Udyog Mitra Mandal India) is one of the five programmes under the VLFM initiative. Under the guidance of Professor Shoji Shiba, Chief Adviser VLFM/CSM; Mr Furuhashi, Chief Instructor of VSME and Mr. Chandrakant Patel, Managing Trustee - SNS Foundation; a new and innovative initiative was launched to scale up the 1000 VSME programme since 2015. This scale-up initiative is conceived to develop VSME-uninitiated SMEs through the voluntary efforts of those SME companies who have gone through the VSME programme and benefited from the same. These ‘volunteers’ have committed to give back to the movement what they benefitted from it two or three years earlier. Rightly so, the project is called VLMi – Visionary LaghuUdyog MitraMandal India.

Another significant aspect of the VLMi project is the partnership and collaboration between Industry, represented by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Local Academia. The VLMi programme would see the faculty of engineering colleges being trained, who in turn, would train the batch of SMEs in the area. It means the VLMi programme will promote the SME development together with building the quality of technical education.

First batch of the project was started in 2015 with the name “ 7 Star ” in which there were 21 participants from 7 companies from the Belgaum, Hubli and Dharwad region. The graduation ceremony of participants from this batch was held in April, 2016 where participants were awarded certificates from Professor Shoji Shiba. The need for the association of Academia was felt during the running of first batch of this programme. With the objective of skilling faculty from colleges to create a sustainable eco-system for developing VSME skills, a second batch of this project was launched on 7th March, 2016 with the name “VLMi” in collaboration with Industry, represented by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and local Academia - Nutan Maharashtra Institute of Engineering & Technology (NMIET), Talegaon, Pune. This batch comprises of participants from 10 companies and one institute (NMIET). Another batch of VLMi has commenced in April, 2016 at Belgaum with collaboration between the Confederation of Indian Industry, Belgaum Foundry Cluster and KLS Gogte Institute of Technology at GIT Campus, Belgaum.

The total number of companies and participants who are graduates and graduating through VLMi are as follows:

Technical support to VLMi from JICA is provided by Professor Shoji Shiba & Mr. Furuhashi.

Mr. C.S. Patel is providing leadership to this program.

Mr. Saideep Rathnam is the core faculty of the programme.

The 1000 VSME communities in the regions are supporting the scale up initiative.