Clearing the air on creating a separate division for micro-enterprises within the Ministry of MSME, Minister of State in the MSME Ministry Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma informed Parliament that there is no proposal or plan as such.
Earlier in March, a parliamentary panel on industry suggested a separate division for micro-enterprises in the MSME ministry. The division was to focus initiatives on micro units “as the problems faced by the micro-enterprises are different from the problems faced by the small and medium enterprises.”
The panel also called for a separate monitoring mechanism in the ministry regarding the implementation of various schemes meant for the micro-enterprises which constitute around 99 per cent of the MSME sector.
On the same lines, a question was raised in Parliament whether there is any such plan in the ministry and if so, would the separate division assist micro-enterprises in participating more effectively in government schemes like the Prime Minister Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP) which provides financial assistance for setting up new enterprises.
It is also to be noted that a survey was conducted by the Consortium of Indian Associations (CIA) earlier this year comprising 1,08,500 MSMEs. 82% of respondents demanded a separate ministry for micro enterprises for better concentration and support.
As of now, as per data from the Udyam portal, out of 2.24 crore Udyam registered MSMEs, including 41.41 lakh Udyam Assist registrations, 2.17 crore were micro-enterprises while small enterprises were only 5.63 lakh and medium enterprises only a handful 53,033.