BHUBANESWAR: With large industries and banks not expressing enough interest for the growth of medium and small enterprises, the atmosphere across the country for MSME’s has not been favourable. To ensure that there are zero impediments for small and medium scale industries to flourish, the Central Government has modified many regulations in the industrial policy, Union MSME Minister Kalraj Mishra said here on Wednesday.
Addressing the National Convention-cum-Seminar on Ancillary Downstream and Cluster Development in Odisha, Mishra exhorted large industries to support MSMEs in the State and source materials produced by the latter.
The Procurement Policy of 2012 has become mandatory from April this year under which large industries must make 20 per cent of the purchase of raw materials from medium and small scale industries. The policy states that there would be no EMD and no turnover pre-conditions for MSME tenders if the rules are not followed. The Corrective Committee of the Central Government has changed the cumbersome registration process of MSMEs. The paperwork work has been reduced to a single page - 20 point format for an entrepreneur to register an MSME, Mishra said.
After policy level changes were implemented, a record number of 91,000 MSMEs has been registered in the country in the last one and half months. Odisha tops the chart of opportunity for development of MSMEs with several large-scale industries in various sectors.
As many as 26 diagnostic study reports have been prepared for MSME development in the State mostly in food, engineering and automobile sectors, Mishra said. He proposed a ‘food masala’ cluster in Cuttack.
There have been 22 lakh direct beneficiaries of the credit linked subsidy scheme which helps in setting up new industry and upgradation of machinery. There are around 1.75 lakh MSMEs in the State of which 60,000 are sick while many others are non-performing assets (NPAs). Under a notification under ‘Revival and Rehabilitation of MSMEs’ plan, a Corrective Action Committee (CAC) comprising bank officials, industry stakeholders and State and Central Government representatives has been formed.
“The CAC will screen MSMEs which approach banks to declare those as NPAs. These units will be given seven months to revive,” Mishra added.
State MSME Minister Jogendra Behera said Odisha has the expertise, resources and skilled professionals and the large industries are looking out to source raw materials. “We have flexed the State Industrial Policy to favour MSMEs and also setting up regional, district and sub-divisional level centres for creating awareness on the new norms,” he said at the event organised by Laghu Udyog Bharati. Among others, MSME Principal Secretary GK Dhal, Laghu Udyog Bharati National president Om Prakash Mittal and General Secretary Jitendra Gupta were present.