Skill, labour, talent for MSMEs: Nearly 1 lakh jobs were created by over 11,000 MSMEs registered in the north-eastern state Manipur till July end this year, according to chief minister N. Biren Singh. Citing the government data, Singh tweeted that a total of 11,172 MSMEs were registered from Manipur as of 30th July 2021, which has generated massive employment of 99,568 jobs. We have started witnessing the fruits of our initiatives like Start-Up Manipur, TRIFED, etc., he added.
“I am extremely proud to share that Manipur is one of the highest-ranking states in the North East Region in both Registration of MSMEs and Employment generation in the GoI’s Analysis of Udyam Registration Data,” the chief minister tweeted.
Lauding the creation of nearly 1 lakh jobs, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is on a visit to Italy and the UK to attend the G-20 and COP-26 summits, tweeted on Saturday, “Well done Manipur! Keep up the good work of leveraging the strength of the MSME sector in order to further the state’s progress.”
As of October 31, 2021, data from the Udyam Registration portal showed that 16,187 MSMEs were registered in Manipur including 15,984 micro units, 195 small businesses, and eight medium enterprises. However, among eight northeastern states, Assam led the tally in MSME registration with 56,658 units registered on the Udyam portal, followed by Manipur, 5,135 MSMEs registered in Tripura, 2,283 in Mizoram, 2,156 in Nagaland, 1,841 in Arunachal Pradesh, 1,568 in Meghalaya, and 1,109 in Sikkim.
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Despite accounting for only 1.5 per cent of India’s MSME base, MSMEs in Northeast India contributes nearly 62 per cent to the economy in terms of employment, output, and exports, as per the October 2020 report by Export-Import Bank of India (India Exim Bank) and United Nations Development Programme titled MSMEs in North East India. The majority of MSMEs in the region are women-owned and women-operated household industries including agriculture, handloom, etc.
While the region’s geographical location to the south and southeastern nations gives it a trading advantage, its share in India’s overall trade has remained static, hovering consistently in the range of 1-2 per cent, and contributing to a mere 5 per cent of the total exports from India to Bangladesh, Myanmar and Bhutan, according to the report.
Udyam portal was launched on July 1, 2020, to replace the Udyog Aadhar Memorandum (UAM). As of October 31, 2021, 54.68 lakh MSMEs (new enterprises and those migrating from UAM and EM-II) across India were registered on the new portal. In June this year, the government had extended the validity period of EM-II or UAM registered MSMEs from March 31, 2021, to December 31, 2021, in order to onboard the new portal.
