Ease of doing business for MSMEs: Addressing the state chief secretaries in New Delhi on Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for the formalisation of micro, small and medium enterprises to help them scale. In his address at the second national conference of chief secretaries, PM Modi said, “States must act proactively towards formalisation of MSMEs” along with the need to make finance, technology, market and access for skilling available to MSMEs to become globally competitive.
He underscored the importance to bring more MSMEs onto the public procurement portal GeM and also that steps should be taken to make MSMEs part of the global value chain. Discussing the success of the cluster approach in the development of MSMEs, PM Modi said that the linkage of MSME clusters and self-help groups can be explored for promoting local products and getting GI tags registration for them which will give a fillip to the Vocal for Local initiative. The Prime Minister also urged states to identify their best local products and help them attain national and international stature.
“It is my firm belief that we have to continue strengthening our MSME sector. This is important in order to become Aatmanirbhar and boost economic growth. Equally important is to popularise local products. Also highlighted why quality is essential in every sphere of the economy,” the Prime Minister said separately in a tweet.
He also asked chief secretaries to focus on ending “mindless compliances and those laws as well as rules which are outdated. In a time when India is initiating unparalleled reforms, there is no scope for over-regulation and mindless restrictions.”
Importantly, over 33,000 compliances were simplified, rationalized, digitized or decriminalized by central ministries/departments and states/union territories combined to promote ease of doing business in India, Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Som Parkash informed Parliament in July last year.
Also read: ‘PM Modi’s dream to provide work to every hand can be realized only through MSMEs’
To ease business regulations and encourage units in the informal sector to get into the formal fold, the government is planning to launch an Udyam-like registration portal for MSMEs called Udyam Assist Platform (UAP). According to an order by the Development Commissioner (DC) Office of the MSME ministry on December 23, UAP is a formalization project of the MSME ministry and SIDBI to bring the Informal Micro Enterprises (IMEs) into the formal ambit. The certificate issued on the UAP would be treated at par with Udyam Registration Certificate for IMEs for availing of the benefits of priority sector lending.