“I don’t think we are very far away from the situation when this sector becomes the largest employment provider in the country,” he said, speaking at the session titled “Envisioning MSMEs for Bharat@100”, organised in the capital yesterday by the industry body ASSOCHAM.
Citing the latest available data of the National Sample Survey((NSS), he said the MSME sector has been creating 11.10 crore jobs. The NSS 73rd round conducted during the period 2015-16, has found that the MSME sector has been creating 11.10 crore jobs (360.41 lakh in manufacturing, 387.18 lakh in trade and 362.82 lakh in other services) in the rural and the urban areas across the country.
To help the MSME sector face the current challenging phase, the government is working towards a comprehensive and coordinated response, Swain added. “We are working with stakeholders to provide an enabling environment to MSMEs, with a focus on access to credit, low cost of finance, equity inclusion, technology upgradation, access to green technology, enhanced procurement, and domestic and international market access and information dissemination.”
Touching upon the MSME specific announcements made in the Budget 2023, the MSME secretary further mentioned that several fresh measures have been initiated this time to promote timely payments to MSMEs. He asserted that in order to promote timely payments to MSMEs, the Budget 2023 proposed to include payments made to MSMEs within the ambit of Section 43B of the Income Tax Act, 1961. This means that a deduction for such payments is only permissible when the payment is actually paid within the time prescribed under the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Act.
“The budget also announced that 95% of the security amount that used to get forfeited in case of failure by the MSMEs to execute contracts in the Covid period will now be returned by the government and its undertakings,” he said, adding that the budget has announced revamping the credit guarantee scheme under the Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE) with the infusion of Rs 9,000 crore in the corpus, effective April 1, 2023. “We are aiming to start the reductions of the guarantee fee from 1st April this year. We intend to reduce the guarantee fee by 50% soon, which will provide a significant boost to the growth of MSMEs. Besides, we are aiming to bring guaranteed credit support of 2-lakh crore more because of this infusion,” he added.
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