The Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) are facing an uphill task in smaller places like Puducherry, where the resources are limited, said W V R Murthy, IAS, secretary to government (industries and commerce), on Wednesday.
Addressing the buyer-seller meet, organised by the CII, he said the state and Central governments should extend their hand to the MSME sector, which is a key source of economic growth, dynamism and flexibility in advanced industrialised countries, as well as in emerging and developing economies.
“Small businesses are particularly important for bringing innovative products or techniques to the market,” he added.
Murthy said the Mettupalayam truck terminal would soon be converted into an IT park, to be run on the PPP model. The consultant would be identified and a feasibility study would be held soon, he added.
Vidhya Raja, chief manager of State Bank Of India, said it had identified 400 branches across the country and re-designated them as MSME-intensive branches.
She said these branches would provide all assistance to the MSME borrowers, right from stage of resourcing. She also explained how SBI was funding the MSME sector by offering collateral-free loans to the extent of `1 crore under CGTMSE guarantee cover.
K S Shetty, Puducherry CII chairman, said that small industry had to go through lots of procedures to get themselves registered into PSUs. “Today what we look at from the PSUs point of view is to have a single-window for all registration purposes, which could avoid shuttling from one point to the other, as the MSME sector operates with minimal man power,” he said.
The main objective of organising this meet was to bring all the stake holders at a single platform and create linkages between the MSME sector and the PSUs. K Amarnath, vice-chairman, CII Puducherry proposed a vote of thanks.