ABSTRACT
The small- and medium-sized enterpriss (SME) 1 sector plays a vital role in the Indian economy, contributing around 45 per cent of manufacturing output and 40 per cent of exports, and employing an estimated 59.7 million people spread over 26.1 million enterprises according to recent estimates. SMEs today account for almost 90 per cent of the total number of industrial units in the country (Government of India, 2011). In order to promote small industries, a large number of items were reserved to be produced exclusively in small sector during the 1970s and 1980s. However, having functioned for five decades within an overly protective economic and industrial framework, a substantial proportion of Indian SMEs remain isolated from modern technological developments. Apart from certain new-age sectors such as information technology, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, etc.), SMEs in traditional manufacturing sectors such as castings, forgings, glass and ceramics, food processing, textile processing and so on use obsolete, inefficient technologies to burn commercial fuels (coal, oil and gas), leading to wastage of fuel as well as the release of high volumes of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and particulate emissions that are harmful to health and damage the atmosphere. A large number of energy-intensive SME clusters (around 178 clusters manufacturing about 15 product categories) are energy intensive, with fuel costs making up 2 per cent to 50 per cent of the total cost of production (TERI, 2009).While individual SME units are relatively small in size, their sheer numbers, coupled with the fact that they depend on low-efficiency fuel burning technologies, make the SME sector a sizeable source of carbon emissions. Hence, there is a clear and urgent need for SMEs to adopt EE (energy-efficient) technologies that will help them reduce both fuel consumption and carbon emissions.
