Ease of doing business for MSMEs: The total number of Udyam-registered MSMEs shut down due to various reasons between April 1 and December 8 in the current financial year stood at 7,995, said Minister of State in the MSME ministry Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma citing data from the Udyam portal on Monday in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha. Moreover, the number of MSMEs recording a decline in their turnover compared to the previous financial year and which were also re-classified was 19,706. The minister was responding to a question on the number of MSMEs that got shut after Covid and also saw a drop in turnover.
Till July 20 in the current FY, the number of closed Udyam MSMEs was 2,870. During the same month, the government had shared the consolidated data on the number of MSMEs closed over the past six years including the Covid period in the country. According to the combined data from the Udyam registration portal and the erstwhile Udyog Aadhaar Memorandum (UAM), 10,067 MSMEs were shut from 2016 to 2022, as per data shared by Verma in the Rajya Sabha, FE Aspire had reported.
While 400 MSMEs (4 per cent of total closures) were closed during the 2016-2019 period as per the UAM data, the majority 96 per cent units — 9,667 were shut between 2019 and 2022, as per both – UAM and Udyam portal data. Out of that, 6,222 Udyam MSMEs were shut in FY22 with 42,662 people losing their jobs. Between July 1, 2020, and March 31, 2021, 175 units were closed and 724 jobs were lost.
“Closure of MSMEs is certainly a concern for the government for which necessary steps and studies have been undertaken. Closure is one of the reasons cited by units for cancelling their MSME registrations, but the reason for closure is not always mentioned by them. Other reasons for cancelling registrations include stopping the manufacturing of goods or moving to other businesses or they just don’t need the registration anymore,” Ishita Ganguli Tripathy, Additional Development Commissioner, Ministry of MSME had told FE Aspire.
Also read: Over 10,000 MSMEs shut during 2016-2022 period; 96% in past 3 years, shows govt data