Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - Live
‘MSMEs to be in focus to bridge regional gaps’
NEW DELHI: Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday said micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are “definitely” the centre of the government’s developmental goals, which aim for “inclusion through saturation” to bridge regional disparities and make economic development reach evenly across the country and communities, including the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs).
“Saturation is now the key word,” the minister said at a post-Budget interaction with stakeholders in Odisha, referring to the PM’s resolve to take schemes to everyone without discrimination. Replying to the motion of thanks on the President’s address last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had reiterated in the Rajya Sabha the government’s effort to take 100% of benefits to every beneficiary in the country. “This is true secularism. This eliminates discrimination and corruption,” he had said in the house.
Sitharaman said after launching the mechanism to monitor implementation of welfare measures and developmental schemes in Aspirational District Programme (ADP), the Centre has decided to take it to the block level. The government launched ADP in January 5, 2018 to bring transformative changes in the most under-developed 112 districts in the country.
“Now, going further down below to the district level, 500 blocks have been identified where saturation will be attempted at the block level… Since 2014 Prime Minister Modi has been focusing on including all citizens of this country through one or the other programme so that they also come at par on basic amenities and fundamental infrastructure that they should have,” she said. The government launched the Aspirational Blocks Programme, on the template of ADP on January 7, 2023.
In her Budget speech on February 1, the finance minister mentioned it. “Building on the success of the Aspirational Districts Programme, the government has recently launched the Aspirational Blocks Programme covering 500 blocks for saturation of essential government services across multiple domains such as health, nutrition, education, agriculture, water resources, financial inclusion, skill development, and basic infrastructure,” she had said.
Addressing various stakeholders, including industry leaders in Odisha, the Union minister said: “If inclusion through saturation is being aimed at… also, developing MSMEs is basic focus [of the government].” She said the government gave special attention to the sector during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 through Aatmnirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan (Selfreliant India Initiative).
In order to ensure timely payments to small businesses, the government has decided to disallow the offset of expenses of large private firms if the same is due to the MSME vendors and actual payments have not been made, she said.
According to her, to encourage timely payments to MSMEs by private firms, deduction of expenses for tax purposes would be allowed only when the payment is actually made to the vendors. Often, large companies retain payments due to MSMEs but claim the offset benefits for these by showing expense in their books. “We want to encourage the payment of MSMEs because they are the ones who generate a lot of local jobs,” the finance minister had said while replying to Budget debate in the Lok Sabha last week.