Ministry of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) has incurred expenditure of Rs 81 crore out of Rs 274 crore budget earmarked under four schemes — Procurement and Marketing Support scheme, Marketing Assistance Scheme, Coir Vikas Yojana, and International Cooperation Scheme between FY17 and FY19 and till October 2019 (for FY20) to boost marketing competitiveness of small businesses, according to the data shared by the MSME Minister Nitin Gadkari in Rajya Sabha on Monday.

The respective four-year budgets for the four schemes were Rs 183.1 crore, Rs 39.75 crore, Rs 5.59 crore, and Rs 45.88 crore out of which expenditures of Rs 31.37 crore, Rs 28.35 crore, Rs 4.78 crore, and Rs 16.42 crore were made across the four schemes viz., Procurement and Marketing Support scheme, Marketing Assistance Scheme, Coir Vikas Yojana, and International Cooperation Scheme. Importantly, the allocation for Procurement and Marketing Support scheme and International Cooperation Scheme increased significantly for FY20 alone vis-a-vis the previous three fiscal years.

Gadkari had earlier this year announced that the government will be launching a dedicated portal — Bharat Craft for the marketing of goods by MSMEs on the lines of Amazon and China’s Alibaba. The Marketing Assistance Scheme, however, was discontinued in October last year.

“Government is planning to launch Bharat Craft, an e-commerce portal, on the lines of Alibaba, and should soon see turnover on the platform to the tune of Rs 10 lakh crore in the next few years and this would benefit MSMEs in a big way,” Gadkari had said in August this year during the listing of 200th MSME on the National Stock Exchange. In fact, the new portal will be integrated with the Commerce Ministry’s Government e-Marketplace portal to leverage synergies between the two portals even and benefit MSMEs, he had said.

The Khadi and Village Industries Commission in order to boost small business in the khadi and village industries support entrepreneurs by allowing them to sell their products at over 800 sales outlets operated by Khadi Institution, KVIC, and KVIBs. They are also offered financial assistance to participate in international exhibitions apart from national and state level exhibitions.

Published On : 25-11-2019

Source : Financial Express