Ease of doing business for MSMEs: The Odisha government’s MSME Department is launching an online portal AIM 2.0 for faster and transparent administration of incentives under various industrial promotion policies for MSME units in the state. According to an official notification by the department’s principal secretary Saswat Mishra on Thursday, the portal will be operational from June 1, 2023, and accessible through odishamsme.nic.in web portal.
Industrial units will have to make application for financial incentives under IPR-2007, IPR-2015, IPR-2022, Odisha MSMED Policy-2009, Odisha MSMED Policy-2016, Odisha MSMED Policy-2022, Odisha Food Processing Policy-2016 and Odisha Food Processing Policy 2022 mandatorily in online mode in the AIM 2.0 portal, the notification said.
Consequently, the offline application system will be discontinued from June 1 onwards. “General managers (DICs) are directed not to accept application for financial incentives made in offline mode w.e.f 01.06.2023. Instead, they should advise applicant industrial units to apply through online mode.”
Financial incentive applications under other industrial promotion policies, except those mentioned above, will continue to be made in offline mode as is the current practice, the notification added.
Importantly, the state government in February this year had amended its MSME Policy 2016 along with Odisha Food Processing Policy 2013 and Odisha Food Processing Policy 2016 to benefit industrial units whose claims for incentives were rejected due to delay in claim submission.
The government had extended the time limit in the MSME policy for new MSMEs to file claims from the earlier one year of its commencement of production to two years. Moreover, “the state government, at the level of Chief Secretary, may consider condonation of delay (beyond the stipulated period of two years) due to force majeure (reasons like natural calamities, pandemic, etc.) on case-to-case basis,” the notification for amendment had read.
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Meanwhile, in December last year, Odisha had also extended Capital Investment Subsidy (CIS) to new and existing MSEs expanding, modernising and diversifying their business by making at least 25 per cent of their capital investment in plant and machinery up to Rs 2 crore from the earlier upper limit of Rs 1 crore. The upper limit of CIS for new and existing enterprises owned by SC/ST, persons with disabilities, women and entrepreneurs with technical degree/diploma was also increased to Rs 2.50 crores from earlier Rs 1.25 crores.
