Ease of doing business for MSMEs: The MSME ministry’s cluster development programme for micro and small enterprises (MSE-CDP), which aims to strengthen capacity building for MSEs through Common Facility Center (CFC) projects and Infrastructure Development (IDs) projects, has reported completion of only five projects in the current financial year so far, lowest in six years.
According to the data shared by the minister of state in the MSME ministry Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha on March 13, only two CFC projects and three ID projects were completed out of around 30 projects (CFCs and IDs combined) approved in current fiscal so far.
The total count for projects completed in FY18 was 24, more than the total count of 21 projects approved. The number of projects completed peaked at 28 out of 36 approved in FY19 before slipping to 22 out of 74 approved in FY20, 20 in FY21 out of 68 approved and 16 in FY22 out of 31 approved, showed data from the MSME ministry’s dashboard.
Projects completed under MSE-CDP scheme
In his reply to the question about the decline in projects completed, Verma said the government has taken cognizance of the fact and that the lesser completion of projects in FY22 was due to the impact of the Covid pandemic.
Email to the spokesperson in the Development Commissioner, MSME ministry office didn’t elicit an immediate reply for this story.
CFCs pertain to testing and training centres, common bank for raw material, effluent treatment, packaging facilities, export promotion facilities for food process orders such as processing, storage, etc., common facilities such as testing laboratories, repair and maintenance, etc., for services sector such as automobile, tourism, hospitality, health & medical, and more.
ID projects, on the other hand, aim at the development of infrastructure in new/existing notified industrial estate including flatted factory complexes. Flatted factory complexes are multi-story industrial buildings used for manufacturing and related processes.
Implemented since 2003, the total projects approved so far under the MSE-CDP initiative stood at 540 including 212 projects pertaining to the setting up of CFCs and 328 projects for Infrastructure Development (ID), out of which 92 CFCs and 200 ID projects have been completed, Verma said in reply to a separate question on the programme on March 16.
To boost sustainable manufacturing by MSEs in clusters, the government had last year in May approved revised guidelines for the MSE-CDP programme. Under the revised guidelines, the upper limit of the project cost to set up CFCs was increased to Rs 30 crore from Rs 20 crore, Rs 15 crore for setting up a new industrial estate or flatted factory complex and Rs 10 crore for the upgradation of existing industrial estate or flatted factory complexes.