Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday advised the Arunachal Pradesh government to take up the cluster development approach to support the growth of micro and small enterprises in the state. Addressing an event on credit outreach in Itanagar, the minister also noted the absence of clusters in the state announced by the MSME Ministry till date, according to a PTI report.
“I request Chief Minister Pema Khandu to take up cluster development approach of the 20 GI-identified products in the state. In small places such clusters could be declared by the ministry and Small Industrial Development Bank of India (SIDBI) could be roped in to finance such enterprises,” PTI quoted Sitharaman as saying.
The minister suggested taking up small industry development and enterprises in agri and allied sectors in Arunachal Pradesh with support from various schemes under credit outreach programme such as PM SVANidhi, Stand-up India, Kisan Credit Card, PM MUDRA, NRLM-SHG, PM Surya Ghar and PMEGP.
According to the data from the MSME Dashboard, Arunachal Pradesh with only 15,100 Udyam registered MSMEs had a 0.05 per cent share in 2.9 crore MSMEs across India excluding those registered via the Udyam Assist Platform.
In her budget speech in July this year, Sitharaman had announced that SIDBI will set up 24 new branches to serve all major MSME clusters within three years and enable direct credit to them. With new branches, SIDBI’s service coverage will grow to 168 out of 242 major clusters in the country.
In June this year, a report by a think tank focusing on sustainability Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP) had noted that the implementation of a combination of energy efficiency measures, renewable energy solutions, and advanced technologies across seven clusters covering an aggregate of 66 MSME units could save Rs 37 crore in energy costs and 1,36,581 tonnes of CO₂ emissions. The clusters were based in Alathur (Kerala), Asansol (West Bengal), Bengaluru, Coimbatore, Delhi, Ludhiana and Tiruppur (Taim Nadu).