Scheme of Fund for Regeneration of Traditional Industries (SFURTI)

            The objectives SFURTI is to organize the traditional industries and artisans into clusters to make them competitive and provide support for their long term sustainability by way of

• Enhancing the marketability of products,
• Improving the skills of artisans,
• Making provision for common facilities and
• Strengthening the cluster governance systems.

Ø  The Scheme guidelines of SFURTI have been revamped in 2015 and the Scheme has taken giant strides in 2015. 

•     Funds to the tune of Rs.62 Crore have been sanctioned under the Scheme in 2015 as against Nil in 2014.

Ø  68 clusters have already been approved in 2015 itself against the target of 71 clusters during 12^th Plan period with more than a year of the plan period to spare.

Initially, in the first phase, 71 clusters will be developed across the country involving an outlay of Rs.149.44 crores. 

Under the 12^th Five Year Plan it is proposed to take up 800 clusters with funding from the Government of India and Asian Development Bank.

Under the revamped SFURTI, there shall be three types of clusters involving artisans from 500 to 2500. 

The three types of clusters with their number and approximate artisan coverage for the first phase is as under:-

Type of clusters	No. of clusters under the scheme	Approx. Artisan coverage
Heritage clusters(1000-2500 artisans)	2	5000
Major clusters(500-1000 artisans)	10	10000
Mini clusters(upto 500 artisans)	59	29500
	71	44500

The time frame for the implementation of the project for each cluster will be three years and the funding pattern under the scheme has provision for

• Soft interventions including skill training, capacity building, design development, etc.
• Hard interventions including Common Facility Centres, Raw Material Banks(RMB), training centres, etc. and
• Cross cutting thematic interventions which include brand building& promotion, news media marketing, e-commerce, innovation, R&D initiatives and developing linkages between clusters.

In addition to Khadi and Village Industries Commission and Coir Board as Nodal Agencies for Khadi and VI clusters and coir based clusters respectively, the revamped SFURTI also provides for engagement of reputed national/ regional level institutions with sectoral expertise in the major sub-sectors of the traditional industries, as Nodal Agency.  

The scheme also provides for engaging the services of reputed national/ regional level institutions with proven expertise in artisanal and small enterprise cluster developments as Technical Agencies to provide handholding and implementation support to the SFURTI clusters.