Hyderabad: The Telangana government is working with the Centre for setting up the country's first National Design Centre (NDC) here, Minister for IT and Industries KT Rama Rao said on Saturday.

The government of Telangana is working closely with the department concerned for promotion of industry and internal trade and the government of India to set up the first National Design Centre in the city," Rao said during the inaugural session of the World Design Assembly.

The design centre would provide design consultancy services to companies and capacity-building and training for raising the quality of design education in India (among other services), he said.

The NDC would help the rising quality design education in India, help in global positioning and planning of Indian designs, promote design innovation and create design awareness, he added.

The centre would also help in marketing and showcasing design trends supporting the medium and small enterprises and start-ups, besides improving the competitiveness and encourage design research, he further said.

Despite the increase in awareness about importance of design, the design industry was still nascent in terms of profitability, number of full-time professionals, and original content creation, he said.

This is owing to either under-realisation of design value, traditional businesses still relying on in-house design teams to customise designs from abroad or limited width and depth of design specialist firms with market access, he said.

Quoting CII estimates, the Minister said the potential size of the design industry in India isexpected to be approximately Rs 19,000 crore by 2020, with a realisation of only 10-15 per cent.

Multinationals, looking to expand their footprint in India, are also realising the value of indigenous design innovations for product acceptance in local markets, he added.

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