Functions which may be assigned to Development Councils :-
(1) Recommending targets for production, co-ordinating production programmes
and reviewing progress from time to time.
(2) Suggesting norms of efficiency with a view to eliminating waste, obtaining
maximum production, improving quality and reducing costs.
(3) Recommending measures for securing the fuller utilisation of the installed
capacity and for improving the working of the industry, particularly of the less
efficient units.
(4) Promoting arrangements for better marketing and helping in the devising of a
system of distribution and sale of the produce of the industry which would be
satisfactory to the consumer.
(5) Promoting standardisation of products.
(6) Assisting in the distribution of controlled materials and promoting
arrangements for obtaining materials for the industry.
(7) Promoting or undertaking inquiry as to materials and equipment and as to
methods of production, management and labour utilisation, including the
discovery and development of new materials, equipment and methods and of
improvements in those already in use, the assessment of the advantages of
different alternatives and the conduct of experimental establishments and of tests
on a commercial scale.
(8) Promoting the training of persons engaged or proposing engagement in the
industry and their education in technical or artistic subjects relevant thereto.
(9) Promoting the retaining in alternative occupations of personnel engaged in or
retrenched from the industry.
(10) Promoting or undertaking scientific and industrial research, research into
matters affecting industrial psychology and research into matters relating to
production and to the consumption or use of goods and services supplied by the
industry.
(11) Promoting, improvements and standardisation of accounting and costing
methods and practice.
(12) Promoting or undertaking the collection and formation of statistics.
(13) Investigating possibilities of decentralising stages and processes of
production with a view to encouraging the growth of allied small scale and
cottage industries.
(14) Promoting the adoption of measures for increasing the productivity of labour,
including measures for securing safer and better working conditions and the
provision and improvement of amenities and incentives for workers.
(15) Advising on any matters relating to the industry (other than remuneration
and conditions of employment) as to which the Central Government may request
the Development Council to advice and undertaking inquiries for the purpose of
enabling the Development Council so to advise, and
(16) Undertaking arrangements for making available to the industry information
obtained and for advising on matters with which the Development Councils are
concerned in the exercise of any of their functions.