Maharashtra govt likely to unveil plan to revive struggling small units

Reviving the MSME sector is critical to achieve the state's objective of becoming a $1 trillion economy by 2025: Subhash Desai

Maharashtra industries and mining minister Subhash Desai on Tuesday said the state is planning to come out with a comprehensive revival plan for small and medium units which will give them a leg-up in meeting their working capital requirements.

According to Desai, since the main hurdle for MSMEs is managing the working capital, there should be a comprehensive revival plan for them in help them come out of such scenarios.

"We are planning to represent to the finance ministry to develop some packages so that MSMEs have easy access to capital when they need it," he said, highlighting that "listing on the exchanges is another way for MSMEs struggling for capital to have access to funds."

He also said reviving the MSME sector is critical to achieve the state's objective of becoming a USD 1 trillion economy by 2025.

"We recently came out with 13 new policies, and each one of them supports small and medium units," he said addressing the final day of the Maharashtra investor summit here today.

"There is a need to remove hurdles so that MSMEs can flourish and help the state to achieve trillion dollar economy as they are truly the nerve center of economy," he added.

Desai said a part of the revival plan will include launching 20 incubation centres for new ideas, for which he sought the support of the industry in designing them.

"The industry has the experience and the know how, which we will take into consideration while designing these incubation centres," he added.

Further, he said, he has requested chief minister Devendra Fadnavis to bring ease of doing business under the ambit of Right to Services Act.

"This will increase accountability. And when any government official, not only in big cities but also at district levels, create hurdle while disseminating information or implementing government schemes, they will be held accountable and will be punished," he added.