The Government has received very good response with the recently launched simplified Aadhaar based registration system for MSME sector. Within a short period 800 registrations have been received under the scheme. This was stated by Shri Kalraj Mishra, Minister of MSME while addressing media persons here today. The minister said that under the Prime Minister's Generation Programme (PMEGP), employment of about 118,196 persons have been generated during 2015-16. Reiterating Government's commitment to promote Khadi sector in the country, Shri Kalraj Mishra said Government measures and Prime Minister's encouragement to the khadi industry has helped the sector to record 17.55% growth during October 2014 – 15.  The Minister also briefed the media about other recent initiatives taken by his Ministry. Full text of his brief is as follows.

Ease of Doing Business

(a)        Udyog Aadhaar Memorandum (UAM) for registration of MSMEs : Based on the Hon’ble  Prime Minister’s suggestion  in his ‘Mann Ki Baat’, on 3.10.2014, to simplify forms to enable ease of registration of MSME’s, Ministry has notified a simple one-page registration Form ‘Udyog Aadhaar Memorandum’ on 18^th September, 2015 in the Gazette of India Vide Notification Number S.O 2576 (E). The simplified one page registration form “Udyog Aadhaar” was made after consultations with the states and stakeholders. The salient features of the Udyog Aadhaar Memorandum are as under:

Ø      Single Page Online Registration-Mobile friendly

Ø      Self-Certification

Ø      File more than one Udyog Aadhaar

Ø      No documents required

Ø      No fees for Udyog Aadhaar

 (b)       Framework for revival and rehabilitation of MSMEs: The Framework for revival and rehabilitation of MSMEs has been notified by the Ministry under Section 9 of MSMED Act, 2006 on 29/05/2015.  The framework provides a mechanism for revival and rehabilitation with a definite voice to the entrepreneurs and is expected to balance the interests of debtors and creditors. The framework enables Banks/creditors to identify MSME’s which are in the stage of incipient stress and take corrective action to prevent them from becoming NPA’s. MSME’s can seek revival and rehabilitation benefit through a committee constituted by banks with representative from state Governments, experts and others. 

Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP) scheme:

The scheme has received enthusiastic response from the unemployed youth and since inception in 2008-09, it has been able to provide employment opportunities to 28.88 lakh persons through setting up 3.37 lakh enterprises and with margin money subsidy of Rs.6712.97 Crores. The following table shows that there is substantial improvement (10 times) in the performance of PMEGP during 2015-16 compared to year 2013-14.

Social Media :

Ministry has opened interactive interfaces on Facebook and Twitter with the objective of disseminating information relating to programmes, schemes and to connect with public at large. We have been posting all important activities of the ministry through these channels in addition to the websites of the Ministry and its field offices. The response has been quite encouraging with the Facebook and Twitter having attracted over 36,000 followers. This has also been used to elicit public opinion on some recent initiatives of the Ministry.

Skill Development:

In line with the Hon’ble Prime Minister’s call for “Skill India Mission”, the Ministry of MSME has been providing training to eight to nine lakh persons per year to enable them to create new enterprises or become job ready for industry.  These training programmes would be made NSQF compliant with uniform funding pattern.

MoU has been signed on   with Samsung Electronics starting of MSME - Samsung Digital School for development of mobile Apps. MSME – Samsung Technical School at 10 locations (Ludhiana, New Delhi, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Aurangabad, Varanasi, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata) have been established to meet the needs of skill development activities of technically educated youth.

Talent Mela:

National Institute for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (ni-msme), Hyderabad organised 46 talent melas during the period April to September, 2015 at different locations in the country.  In these fairs, 332 job providers and 29,066 job seekers participated out of which, 9,121 candidates were selected for employment.  Besides this, 85 companies participated in the talent mela organised at the Davangere, Karnataka last month where out of 9,141 job seekers who registered, 3,104 candidates were selected for employment. 

Khadi Initiatives

Prime Minister appealed to all Indians to buy at least one khadi garment in Mann ki Baat on 3^rd October, 2014.  This has resulted in growth of khadi sales and consequent growth in production of Khadi.   

            Growth in khadi sales from October 2012 to March 2013 to October 2013 – March 2014 was 6.38%.  After the appeal, growth in sales rocketed to a 17.55% from October 2014 to March 2015, which is an almost three fold increase when compared to the previous corresponding period.

            Growth in khadi production from October 2012 to March 2013 to October 2013 to March 2014 was 5.82%.  After the appeal, growth in production increased by almost 6 times to 31.1% from October 2014 to March 2015 over the previous corresponding period. In 2014-15 Khadi production has reached Rs. 880 crore registering an increase of around 8.5% over 2013-14.

            Govt. of India introduced Market Development Assistance (MDA) scheme giving full flexibility to the Khadi Institutions to organize their production & sales activity in the best way they considered appropriate. The MDA provided much needed boost to the Khadi programme. Govt. of India provided Rs. 324.64 crore for supporting Khadi Institutions (KIs) under various schemes during 2014-15 which is an increase of around 36% over and above the support provided by the Govt. of India in the preceding year i.e. 2013-14 which stood around Rs. 239.17 crore.

------*****----

AKP/NCJ