Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: The MSME Ministry has extended the deadline for submission of feedback on the draft national policy for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) by two weeks to March 15 for greater participation of MSME stakeholders with their inputs. The announcement was made on Wednesday in an office memorandum signed by Amit Kumar Tamaria, Deputy Director (MSME Policy), Office of Development Commissioner (DC-MSME).
Office of DC-MSME had floated the draft policy document early last month that proposed eight “specific action areas” to promote competitiveness, boost technology upgradation, cluster and infrastructure development, procurement of MSME products and provide dedicated credit support. The draft policy document was prepared by the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA), the memorandum said. IIPA is the academic institution under the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions for training, research and information dissemination related to public administration.
“Complete stakeholders’ participation is very important in policy matters in order to ensure citizen or business-centric guidelines are framed. The government is looking to get maximum feedback on the current draft with the two-week extension. Also, it is the government’s discretion to decide on the period of extension,” a source familiar with the draft policy told Financial Express Online on anonymity.
Comments from the office of DC-MSME were not immediately available for this story. IIPA declined to comment.
The eight action areas mentioned in the draft policy included intergovernmental role and responsibility, legislation/regulatory framework for MSMEs, access to finance/ financial assistance for MSMEs, technology upgradation, knowledge management, ease of doing business, skill development, and exit code.
Importantly, India doesn’t have an MSME policy so far despite the MSME sector being hailed as the economic backbone of the country with nearly 30 per cent contribution to India’s gross domestic product, close to 50 per cent share in the country’s exports, and 11 crore jobs created.
However, efforts have been underway since around 2015 when the One Member Committee under the chairmanship of former Cabinet Secretary Dr Prabhat Kumar was constituted by the Ministry of MSME to help in formulating the policy. According to a tweet by the MSME Ministry on December 14, 2014, it had come out with a draft consultation paper then as well, but the sector continued to wait for the policy to be out.
