The government today said it is taking various steps, including help start-ups to get easy loans and opening 500 incubation centres in the country, for boosting micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector.
"We have decided that we will run 500 incubation centres in the country. At present there are only 84 centres. I request the corporate sector to encourage people to open these centres. It will help in providing skills and employment to youths," MSME Minister Kalraj Mishra said here at a CII function.
Incubation centre promotes and supports untapped creativity of individual innovators and to assist them to become technology based entrepreneurs. It also seeks to promote networking and forging of linkages with other constituents of the innovation chain for commercialisation of their developments.
He also said the government would ensure that all the public sector units procure 20 per cent of goods from MSMEs.
"As far as procurement policy is concerned, only 32 PSUs have complied with the 20 per cent mandatory procurement out of 277 PSUs," he said.
The government is looking at amending public procurement policy to incorporate provisions against PSUs who fail to meet the mandatory at least 20 per cent procurement by April 2015.
The Minister also said the government will revise the definition of MSMEs to provide for a higher capital ceiling.
"MSMEs should not face problem in getting bank loans. MSMEs will help in boosting the country's economy. The sector is the back bone of the country," he said.
MSME sector contributes 8 per cent of GDP and accounts for around 40 per cent of the total exports and around 45 per cent of the manufacturing output.
As per the Fourth All India Census of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, total number of Enterprises of the MSME sector is 361.76 lakh of which 15.64 are registered Enterprises. The sector provides employment to 805.24 lakh persons. MSME sector is the largest job provider after agriculture sector.
