Virbhadra Singh, the minister for MSMEs, has called for policy and institutional reforms to ensure adequate and timely finance for MSMEs. Commercial and development banks should address the problem immediately, he said. The minister was speaking at the launch of a cluster observatory portal for the sector recently.
Prepared by the Foundation for MSME Clusters, the observatory (www.clusterobservatory.in) provides online access to the information about clusters and contains a rich database of more than 1,000 industrial and 3,000 artisanal clusters in India.
YK Alagh, chairman, of the foundation, mentioned that in countries like Korea, SMEs that get an order immediately receives 80% of their working capital requirements in advance from the commercial banks.
T Ramasami, secretary in the department of science and technology, which has sponsored the portal, suggested the creation of a national technology portal for assisting MSMEs.
