Credit and finance for MSMEs: MSME Minister Narayan Rane on Monday launched the web portal for the Rs 6,062.45-crore World Bank-assisted central government scheme Raising and Accelerating MSME Performance (RAMP) for MSMEs, over six months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the scheme. Rane launched the portal at the Regional Conference on Sustainable Development of MSMEs in Northeast Region in Agartala to “scale up the implementation capacity and coverage of MSMEs in the country,” MSME Ministry said.
The scheme was originally announced back in 2020 by the government and the World Bank to support Covid-hit MSMEs in the country. Out of the total scheme’s limit, Rs 3,750 crore was approved by World Bank in June 2021 while the balance of Rs 2312.45 crore would be funded by the government. The scheme targets to improve the performance of 5.55 lakh MSMEs, according to a World Bank statement in June 2021 while its monitoring and policy overview would be undertaken by a National MSME Council headed by the MSME minister, the Cabinet had said in March 2022 while approving the scheme.
The scheme’s budget will be utilised for supporting institutional and policy reforms, research studies, integration of portals within the ministries/departments, increasing firm level capabilities through technology upgradation, reducing the incidence of delayed payments, etc. over a five-year period beginning FY23, said Minister of State for MSMEs Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma in the Rajya Sabha in July last year.
According to Verma, during the first year of implementation, FY23, the scheme aims at inviting states and union territories to prepare financing roadmap called Strategic Investment Plans (SIPs) while the projects or businesses proposed in the SIPs will be funded on their appraisals by the MSME ministry. The scheme will begin with five first mover’ states – Gujarat, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, and Tamil Nadu which are home to reportedly 54 per cent of all registered MSMEs in the country.
Also read: RAMP programme for MSMEs: What targeted interventions are needed for its success
The government had last year informed that the financial support under RAMP will be routed into the MSME Ministry’s budget against ‘Disbursement Linked Indicators’ (DLIs) to back the ministry’s various MSME programmes. The National MSME Reform Agenda, accelerating MSME sector centre-state collaboration, strengthening the invoice discounting market for MSMEs, boosting the effectiveness of the CGTMSE scheme, etc., would be the DLIs.
