Share of exports of products related to India’s micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) during the year 2018-19 stood at 48.10 per cent as per the information from Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics, MSME Minister Nitin Gadkari said in a written reply in Rajya Sabha on Monday.
The jump in the share has been impressive from the preceding year (FY18) when MSME exports contributed only 7.5 per cent to total exports. The share for FY16 and FY17 stood at 5.9 per cent ($130.7 billion) and 4.8 per cent ($137 billion) respectively. The value for MSME’s share of exports was $147.4 billion while last year till September MSMEs exported goods worth $78.5 billion, former MoS for MSME Ministry Giriraj Singh had said in Lok Sabha in December last year.
The employment generated by micro-enterprises also grew by over 2 lakh (people employed) from 3.58 lakh in FY15 to 5.87 lakh in FY19, the MSME Minister further informed as per the Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP) — a credit-linked subsidy programme to boost self-employment through micro-enterprises in the non-farm sector. Also, the allocation to PMEGP nearly doubled from FY18 at Rs 1072.90 crore in actual expenditure to Rs 2118.80 crore in FY19. Moreover, 73,427 ‘projects’ were supported under the programme in FY19, Nitin Gadkari said.
With respect to funding, which remains among the key challenges for MSMEs to grow, the credit facility was extended significantly during the financial year up from the preceding year. The minister said that 4.36 lakh credit facility (collateral free number of loans) were given Rs 30,168.57 crore in FY19 while only 2.63 lakh such loans were given worth Rs 19,065.91 in FY18.
“With respect to access to finance, there are multiple issues but it depends on how much of them government looks at. Currently, because the government is running in deficit, so they are getting all the savings through the public sector banks by paying them a higher interest rate. This leaves little liquidity with banks to invest in the market and hence they can’t lend capital to businesses,” Anil Bhardwaj, Secretary-General, Federation of Indian Micro and Small & Medium Enterprises (FISME) had told Financial Express Online. Government has to curtail spend on unproductive things such as increasing salaries of public sector employees because it neither creates asset nor it remains with banks for giving loans, Bhardwaj added.
Nitin Gadkari also informed about 17 Common Facility Centres and 11 Infrastructure Development Projects set up as per the Cluster Development Programme during FY19. Also, 14,155 units were benefited with Rs 980.44 crore worth subsidy under the Credit Linked Capital Subsidy Scheme while 1,26,902 micro and small businesses were benefited under the Public Procurement Policy.
Published On : 23-07-2019
Source : Financial Express
