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The much-anticipated national policy for the medium, small and micro enterprises (MSME) sector, the “cradle of Make in India”, has been delayed, as the recommendations being finalised by the Prabhat Kumar panel are expected to be ready by October 31, instead of in June.
“The recommendations should be finalised by October 31, 2016,” MSME Minister Kalraj Mishra said, adding that the report had been delayed as the panel sought to include more stakeholder inputs as well as look at the policies of other countries.
As per a December 2015 notification issued by the Development Commissioner, MSME, the committee was to submit its recommendations “as soon as possible, but not later than June 2016”.
Highlighting his Ministry’s work after completing two years in office, Mishra told reporters that the main change was to bring in transparency and accountability through large-scale digitisation.
“Almost every scheme has been put on the Web. Grievances are being monitored through the Web, and efforts are being made to bring even the MSME census online,” he said.
Dip in exports
At a time when exports have been plunging for over a year, Mishra said the MSME sector, which accounts for 40 per cent of the country’ exports, was not much affected.
“There are no reports of any decline as of now,” he said, adding that coir exports had surpassed a record Rs 1,900 crore during 2015-16 against Rs 1,400 crore in 2013-14.
However, the Minister admitted a rise in the number of sick MSMEs to five lakh, adding that a scheme for revival and rehabilitation would kick off from July 1, 2016, and by June 30, “banks will set up various branch-wise committees to take up cases of revival.”
The sector accounts for 45 per cent of non-performing assets or bad loans in the banking system.
Employment generation scheme
As regards the Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme, Mishra said along with khadi and coir, over 10 lakh jobs had been created in the past two years. In 2016-17, the target is to set up 55,200 enterprises, providing job opportunities to 4,41,600 youth, he added.
On the provision of mandatory 20 per cent procurement by public sector units (PSUs), Mishra said in 2015-16, as many as 42 central PSUs had purchased goods and services worth Rs 18,141.07 crore, with 25 of these overshooting the 20 per cent target.
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