India’s small businesses have shown tremendous growth as the number of jobs reported by micro, small and medium enterprises registered on the government’s Udyam portal has crossed the 15 crore-mark.

According to the portal, 13.86 crore jobs, including 3.41 crore women employees, were reported by 2.06 micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) registered directly with it. The remaining 1.17 crore jobs were reported by 99.98 lakh micro units registered on the portal via the Udyam Assist Portal (UAP) of the government.

Speaking on the development, MSME Minister Narayan Rane noted, “It is a matter of immense joy and pride that under the leadership of respected Prime Minister Narendra Modi Ji, MSME sector has achieved the great achievement of generating 15 crore+ employment.”

“These 15 crore workers include more than 3.4 crore women. Under the multidimensional guidance of the Prime Minister, the MSME sector ‍ is promoting micro, small and medium entrepreneurs on a large scale, thereby creating new livelihoods across the country,” he posted on X.

It is to be noted that the Udyam portal was launched in July 2020 to replace the Udyog Aadhaar Memorandum (UAM) in 2020. According to the MSME ministry’s 2020-21 annual report, UAM had registered only 1.02 crore MSMEs during its years of operation between September 2015 and June 30, 2020.

Further, the ministry’s annual report cited the data from the National Sample Survey’s (NSS) 73rd round conducted during the period 2015-16, saying the number of jobs reported by 6.33 crore MSMEs in India stood at 11 crore.

In January, the government launched UAP to enable them access to priority sector lending.

In a separate development, Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal said the government is looking at ways such as free trade agreements to enable domestic MSMEs to participate in public procurement of different countries.

He said 10-15 per cent of the GDP of any country accounts for public procurement, which could be around USD 10-15 trillion in value terms.

The secretary also said that integration of MSMEs in the global supply chains would be important for global trade.