Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), which constitute the backbone of the industrial and services sector in India, are most vulnerable to any downturn in demand. Thanks to the global financial crisis, units in this sector have got ample taste of this over the past year.

Back from the brink

Business Standard

Projects worth over Rs 70,000 crore to upgrade technology have been kickstarted in the country.

Ficci to seek quota for small units in e-governance

The toll-free helpline for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), recently launched by the Central government to help them deal with problems relating to taxation, laws, policies and the like, has been welcomed by the SMEs, but entrepreneurs are still unclear as to how exactly it will benefit them.

SMEs unclear about how helpline will work

Vijaya Kumari, a widow from Nagapattinam, earned her living by doing other people&rsquo;s laundry. That was till the December 2004 tsunami changed the tide. Her business was badly affected.

Cosmos Ignite lights up lives with solar lanterns

Patiala, the princely city of Punjab, has thousands of families who have been engaged in hand embroidery for generations. A business that extends employment to over 2 lakh persons (including traders, artisans, wholesalers and retailers) and registers transactions of over Rs 100 crore per year, has been flourishing on its own, without state government intervention.However, due to the lack of concerted effort from any agency, the business has remained highly unorganised, leading to the exploitation of labour.

Patiala embroidery units' artisans an exploited lot

Let us for the moment ignore whether these are good times or bad times for buying art.

The hidden cost that hurts

Men&rsquo;s fashion will no longer be the neglected child of the Indian fashion world. While women&rsquo;s fashion has almost two events every year, men&rsquo;s fashion shows are showcased on the periphery. All this will soon change with the announcement of the Van Heusen Men&rsquo;s Week by Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI) in September this year.

FDCI announces Van Heusen Men's week

Steel companies have increased prices of flat steel, used by automobile and consumer durable sectors, by Rs 500-1,000 a tonne, but reduced prices of long steel, used primarily in the construction sector, by Rs 500-2,000 a tonne.

Prices of flat steel hiked, long products slashed

Difficulties in raising finance for new investments may soon be a thing of the past for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), since the Delhi Stock Exchange Limited is gearing up to register MSMEs, to enable them to mobilise funds from the capital market.

DSE  to re-open in Nov, offer platform for MSMEs

a) The procedure of filing returns for showing export obligation.

'DEPB Scrips can be used to pay duty on imports'

Despite the end-consumer being cushioned from the adverse effects of high international prices of auto LPG (ALPG), auto LPG players in India consider setting up new retail outlets in urban markets unviable. The reasons are the high cost of land and the stringent on- and off-site safety-distance norms laid down by the statutory authorities.

Urban retail outlets unviable for ALPG players

In order to tackle economic deprivation and social isolation that Dalits face, the Central government plans to recognise Dalit villages in different parts of the country and make them self-dependent. A handful of villages have already been identified in Uttarakhand and seven other states for this purpose.

Centre plans model villages for Dalits

Over the past 12 months, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) learnt how to deal with the downturn. Now, with the economy showing the first signs of recovery, they are learning how to seize the opportunity to develop growth momentum once again. Karnataka&rsquo;s SMEs are making both individual and industry-level efforts towards this goal.

Skill building planned for small units in Karnataka

A scarcity of rectified spirit in West Bengal (WB) has brought the bottling operations of organised sector country liquor manufacturers to a halt, disrupting distribution through licensed retail vendors. The shortage was triggered by the state government&rsquo;s delay in determining the price of rectified spirit.

Rectified spirit shortage hits WB country liquor trade

With small and medium enterprises&rsquo; (SMEs) need for efficient logistics growing, Aparna BPO Services Ltd, a logistics BPO services provider, has decided to enter the warehousing segment primarily meant for auto-ancillary and other SMEs in and around Pune.

Pune BPO sets up warehouse for auto parts makers

Deepak Pahwa, Managing Director of Pahwa Enterprises, India&rsquo;s largest private sector SME in the HVAC&amp;R (heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration) industry, tells Business Standard that some of his key customers are pharma units, and since dehumidification machines are at the heart of pharma units, his company was unaffected by the downturn.

'We have filed a world patent for a new energy-saving technology'

A patient in need of treatment is bound to go to a clinic to see a doctor. What if there is an ailing business unit or a small pain point in a business process? Can an entrepreneur walk into an &lsquo;entrepreneur&rsquo;s clinic&rsquo;? Well, in Pune at least they can.

And now, a clinic for ailing entrepreneurs!

The Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), an agency of the Union Ministry of Power, has introduced a programme to help small and medium enterprises (SMEs) use energy efficiently and several policy measures to accelerate power generation.

BEE to help SMEs use energy efficiently

Para 4.35 of Export Import Policy 2002-04 had a specific provision that in cases where the additional customs duty is adjusted from DEPB, no benefit of CENVAT/Drawback shall be admissible. This provision was deleted on 28th January 2004, thereby removing the restriction. So, we have taken Cenvat Credit of the same after that date. But, the Central Excise authorities have denied the benefit on the grounds that Cenvat Credit Rules at that time did not allow that.

'Fin Min cannot deny what Commerce Ministry allows'

The traditional industrial clusters in Tamil Nadu, home to over five lakh small and medium enterprises (SMEs), are witnessing a sign of revival after the slowdown, but the biggest challenge is labour shortage. Industry representatives from the engineering, textile and leather clusters in the state complain that the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (NREGP) is diverting workers from their units.

Workers return to villages

The substantial revision in the Minimum Support Price of cotton (by about 45 per cent last year), coupled with the slowdown in the economy, has put the Punjab textile industry in the doldrums. Some of the spinning mills have deferred their expansion plans and many have become unviable.

Spinning mills defer expansion

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