MSME Board to discus industry's Pain Points on January 18th

National Board for micro, small and medium enterprises – the highest policy making body  for the sector will meet on January 18, 2016 at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi.

The Board chaired by Kalraj Mishra, Union Minister for MSME will brainstorm on issues like Udyog Aadhar, Enterprise Creation (Start-Up), Access to Credit, Public Procurement Policy and New Initiatives of the Government for the sector.

The meeting is being held at a crucial juncture when the 4 crore plus MSME population of India are singing under credit squeeze, enormous delayed payments and severe demand recession.

Holding of the Board meeting when the Union Budget is at the final stage is also expected to provide leads to the Finance Minister to address the needs of MSMEs in the Budget 2016.

The National MSME Board constituted under the MSME Development Act 2006, is a tripartite body of the Government of India, State Governments and Stakeholders in the sector, viz., Banks, MSME Associations, MSME experts etc.

While the MSMED Act stipulated for at least quarterly meeting of the Board, this is the second meeting of the Board in FY 2015-16, held under the chairmanship of the Minister for MSME, Kalraj Mishra.

Addressing the earlier meeting held in July, 2015, the Minister mentioned that when we think of Make in India, it is the MSME sector which comes as the focal point of discussion and it is the time to take some major steps to resolve the issues that MSMEs faces.

However, in the real world we find, the credit release to the sector has stagnated, exports nosedived, due payments held by the large buyers bulged to nearly R 10,000 crore since then.

Even the sharp drop in prices raw materials like steel in the global market could not be leveraged by the MSMEs as Government raised the tariffs to protect the domestic   manufacturers.

The only silver lining is the announcement of web based simplified Udyog Aadhar Memorandum (UAM) by the Ministry of MSME for on line registration, superseding the cumbersome Entrepreneur’s Memorandum (EM) part I and Part II.

The same issues are expected to be discussed by the next meeting of the Board and the sector will keenly expect an immediate action plan to resuscitate the MSME sector, which manufactures almost half of all industrial products in India.

Commenting on the agenda of the National Board Meeting, a representative of FISME, the leading federation of 150 plus MSME Associations of India quipped, Government should have asked for remedial from the important stakeholders for the maladies the MSME sector is suffering from and these should have been the basis for the brainstorming by the National Board.