Kalraj takes stock of SC/ST Hub action plan

Union Minister Kalraj Mishra today chaired a meeting of the high-powered monitoring committee of the national SC/ST Hub and took stock of its activities including setting up of an MSME databank.
The Hub was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in October to provide support to entrepreneurs from the community. Its main focus is to monitor the procurement from SC/ST MSMEs which at present is less than 0.3 per cent against the required 4 per cent target.
The Hub would primarily aid in strengthening market access/linkages, mentoring, capacity building, leveraging financial support schemes and sharing industry best practices.
It will have a data bank of MSMEs, vendor development programmes, mentoring, capacity building, finance facilitation, marketing assistance and consortiums of SC/ST suppliers and a management information system.

The data bank will also eventually enable the SC/ST entrepreneurs to indicate the names of Ministries or CPSE/Central Ministries to which the enterprise would be interested in supplying its products or services.
In order to enrich the MSME data bank with SC/ST enterprises, the field offices of National Small Industries Corporation have been advised to identify and enter SC/ST units in the databank.
The action plan of National SC/ST Hub aims to utilise various existing schemes of different Government departments and effectively leverage the opportunities and benefits entitled for the SC/ST entrepreneurs.
According to the Public Procurement Policy, 20 per cent of total procurement of goods and services by Central Ministries and CPSEs shall be made from the MSEs, whereas 4 per cent out of the 20 per cent shall be made from MSEs owned by SC & ST entrepreneurs.