Policies must focus on enabling MSMEs to grow by unshackling them: Economic Survey

For reorienting policies for growth in the MSME sector, the Economic Survey states that MSMEs that grow not only create greater profits for their promoters but also contribute to job creation and productivity in the economy. Our policies must, therefore, focus on enabling MSMEs to grow by unshackling them.

Job creation in India, however, suffers from policies that foster dwarfs, i.e. small firms that never grow, instead of infant firms that have the potential to grow and become giants rapidly. While dwarfs, i.e., firms with less than 100 workers despite being more than ten years old, account for more than half of all organized firms in manufacturing by number, their contribution to employment is only 14 per cent and to productivity is a mere 8 per cent. In contrast, large firms (more than 100 employees) account for three-quarters of such employment and close to 90 per cent of productivity despite accounting for about 15 per cent by number.

Size-based incentives that are provided irrespective of firm age and inflexible labour regulation, which contain size-based limitations, contribute to this predicament. To unshackle MSMEs and thereby enable them to grow, all size based incentives must have a sunset clause of less than ten years with necessary grand-fathering.

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