Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: While the Covid-induced lockdown ravaged the MSME sector like its girls-led enterprises, the government is but to record the similar. Currently, “The Ministry of MSME does not have data on the percentage of women-led enterprises who reported a significant decrease in their sales revenue post lockdown,” stated MSME Minister Narayan Rane. The minister was responding to a query in the Lok Sabha not too long ago irrespective of whether 90 per cent female entrepreneurs reported a considerable lower in their sales revenues post-lockdown and that the recovery for girls-led MSMEs is also most likely to be slower due to low levels of earnings and larger prices of unpaid and domestic work.
Rane cited a current study performed by the ministry by way of Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) that assessed the influence of the pandemic on micro units like girls-led units set up beneath the Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP). According to the study, 88 per cent PMEGP beneficiaries had reported a damaging influence although the remaining 12 per cent of micro units, which operate in the overall health and retail sectors, stated that they have been benefitted due to Covid.
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Importantly, the government at the moment does not have the information for the general quantity of MSMEs as properly closed due to the lockdown measures that also led to a contraction in the financial activity. “This contraction also impacted the MSME sector. However, as MSMEs are present in both formal and informal sector, data regarding temporary or permanent closure of the units are not maintained by the Government of India in Ministry of MSME,” Rane had stated in the Rajya Sabha earlier this month. Nonetheless, regardless of Covid, the minister stated 91 per cent MSMEs have been located to be functional, citing the findings of an on the internet study performed by the National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC) to have an understanding of the operational capabilities and issues faced by the beneficiaries of NSIC schemes amid Covid.
According to a Parliamentary panel report on Covid influence on MSMEs tabled in Rajya Sabha last week, the stimulus package announced last year for the financial revival post-Covid has been “found to be inadequate as the measures adopted were more of loan offering and long-term measures instead of improving the cash flow to generate demand as immediate relief.” The Committee in its suggestions asked the government to come up with a “larger economic package aimed at bolstering demand, investment, exports, and employment generation to help the economy, including MSMEs.” The government had last year launched the Rs 3 lakh crore Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) — as portion of the Rs 20 lakh crore stimulus package.