Kalraj Mishra
MINISTER FOR MICRO, SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES
THE MEDIUM AND SMALL enterprises account for nearly 37 per cent of India’s GDP and are one of the largest employers (nearly 117 million people). But the share of MSME manufacturing output in the total has been on a steady decline since the high of 42 per cent in 2006-07. MSMEs continued to be marred by operational inefficiencies and infrastructure challenges. There is now a revival and rehabilitation framework in place for MSMEs in distress, and a credit guarantee trust fund has been set up to facilitate flow of credit in the system. An MSME database has also been set up. The RBI had raised concerns over the lack of supervision in the credit guarantee schemes. New government programmes like Stand Up India, Start Up India, Digital India offer huge potential for the MSME sector. Can the ministry help industry use it to its advantage?