Centre asks states to provide corpus for MSME fund

With a view to encourage small enterprises, MSME Minister Kalraj Mishra today asked states to contribute Rs 100 crore to Credit Guarantee Fund Scheme under which Rs 1,000 crore collateral free loan could be provided to such units in the respective states.

“If you provide Rs 100 crore for this, a collateral free loan of Rs 1,000 crore would be offered for promotion of MSME under the Credit Guarantee Fund Scheme,” he said at national conference of state ministers for industry and MSME here.

“This initiative has been taken by Kerala and Chhattisgarh and I invite the other states to follow,” he said. Besides, he said, the Ministry is working on the simplification of process for setting up an enterprise and online registration of MSME units.

For this, the application forms should be consolidated into one unified form and such forms should be filed online. The Ministry has taken an initiative in this direction, he said.

“While the Ministry is making all out efforts to promote and develop this sector, the support and cooperation of the states is very much needed,” he added.

MSME contribute nearly 8 per cent of the country’s GDP, 45 per cent of the manufacturing output and 40 per cent of the exports.

They provide the largest share of employment after agriculture, he said, adding, the employment potential is much higher than that in large industries.

Presently, the MSME provides employment to about 80 million persons through 36 million enterprises.

In view of the credit requirement of the enterprises, a venture capital fund of Rs 10,000 crore has been announced in the Budget.

“We are working on implementation of this venture capital fund,” he added.