Government to support MSME sector for creating new jobs

The government is committed to supporting micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) which is an important sector of the Indian economy that fosters entrepreneurship and generates employment opportunities at lower capital cost, states the Economic Survey 2019-20, tabled in Parliament on Friday.

It gave a detailed analysis of major measures undertaken to support the MSME sector to ensure better credit flow, technology up-gradation, ease of doing business and market access.

On November 2, 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced key reforms for faster growth of the MSME sector which included in-principle approval for loans up to Rs 1 crore within 59 minutes through an online portal. A total of 1.59 lakh loans have been sanctioned involving Rs 49,330 crore. Of these, Rs 37,106 crore has been disbursed up to October 2019.

The reforms included interest subvention of 2 per cent for all GST-registered MSMEs on incremental credit up to Rs 1 crore. SIDBI received and settled claims of Rs 18 crore from 43 banks and non-banking finance companies from November 2018 to March 2019.

All companies with a turnover more than Rs 500 crore to be mandatorily on TReDS platform to enable entrepreneurs to access credit from banks. So far. 329 companies have registered themselves on the TReDS portal.

All central public sector undertakings (CPSUs) are now compulsorily procuring at least 25 per cent of their total purchases from MSMEs. They have procured goods and services worth Rs 15,936 crore from 59,903 MSMEs.

All CPSUs must mandatorily procure through Government e-Marketplace (GeM) portal. A total of 258 CPSUs have been on-boarded on the GeM portal while 57,351 MSME sellers and service providers have been registered.

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