Glossary
Definitions written to be quoted: a short answer up top, sources at the bottom, and nothing in between that a reader has to wade through. The schema requires at least one source per entry — no source, no page.
Schemes and policy
- CGTMSE — The Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises, a Government of India and SIDBI trust whose Credit Guarantee Scheme lets banks lend to micro and small enterprises without collateral or a third-party guarantee. The guarantee ceiling has been ₹10 crore since 1 April 2025.
- MSME — A micro, small or medium enterprise under India's MSME Development Act, 2006, classified by investment in plant and machinery and annual turnover. Since 1 April 2025: micro up to ₹2.5 crore and ₹10 crore; small up to ₹25 crore and ₹100 crore; medium up to ₹125 crore and ₹500 crore.
- Pari-passu — In an Indian incentive scheme, a pari-passu payment is the government share released pro rata only after the applicant has mobilised its own corresponding share into a no-lien account, which may be spent only on eligible capital expenditure for the approved project.
- PLI scheme — A Government of India scheme paying an approved manufacturer a percentage of its incremental sales of goods made in India, over a base year, for a fixed term. Fourteen sector schemes approved from 2020, about ₹1.97 lakh crore in outlay; the incentive goes to the approved firm, not its suppliers.
- Udyam registration — The Ministry of MSME's free online registration for micro, small and medium enterprises, in force since 1 July 2020. A firm registers with PAN and Aadhaar; the portal classifies it from its income-tax and GST data and issues a permanent Udyam Registration Number. It replaced Udyog Aadhaar.
Machines and processes
- CNC — Computer numerical control: operating a machine tool from a program, usually G-code, that drives the axes and spindle to cut a part repeatably instead of by hand. The common CNC machine types are the lathe or turning centre, the vertical and horizontal machining centres (VMC, HMC) and EDM.
- Cobot — A collaborative robot: an industrial robot designed to share a workspace with a person without a safety fence, using a safety-rated stop, hand guiding, speed and separation monitoring or limited power and force. ISO 10218:2025 calls the work a collaborative application.
- EDM — Electrical discharge machining: removing metal by controlled sparks between an electrode and an electrically conductive workpiece in a dielectric fluid, with no contact and no cutting force. Wire EDM cuts profiles with a travelling wire; die-sinking EDM burns a shaped electrode into the work.
- VMC — A vertical machining centre: a CNC machine tool with a vertical spindle above a table that moves in X and Y, able to mill, drill, bore and tap, and to change its own tools from a magazine. It is the general-purpose milling machine of an Indian job shop.
Trade and compliance
- BIS certification — Permission from the Bureau of Indian Standards to carry its Standard Mark, certifying a product against an Indian Standard. Voluntary unless a Quality Control Order makes it compulsory. Scheme I grants the ISI mark under licence; Scheme II, the CRS, registers a tested self-declaration.
Technology in industry
- Industry 4.0 — The connecting of machines, materials and people in a factory so that production decisions rest on data the plant collects automatically. Named after a German government programme of 2011; in India it is promoted through the Ministry of Heavy Industries' SAMARTH Udyog Bharat 4.0 centres.
- OSAT — Outsourced semiconductor assembly and test: a plant that receives finished silicon wafers from a chip maker, dices them, packages each die into a chip that can be soldered onto a circuit board, and tests it. The back end of semiconductor manufacturing, as distinct from the wafer fab.