Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: In order to make access to government data on registration of MSMEs, unorganised workers, availability of skilled workforce, etc., more seamless, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her budget speech had said that four portals viz., Udyam, e-Shram, National Career Service (NCS), and Atmanirbhar Skilled Employee-Employer Mapping (ASEEM) will be interlinked.
Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: MSME Secretary BB Swain on Wednesday said the ministry has started analyzing data of businesses registered on the Udyam portal to understand the implementation of various schemes by the government better. The portal, launched in July 2020 to register new and existing MSMEs in the country after the revision of the MSME definition, already has nearly 76 lakh MSMEs registered on it in comparison to the previous Udyog Aadhaar Memorandum (UAM) portal that managed to record 1.02 crore MSMEs in nearly five years.
The fresh business data of MSMEs registering on the Udyam portal is enabling the MSME Ministry to compare their growth patterns, turnover patterns, or their performance this year from last year, Swain said at an event organised by Assocham on MSMEs. “There is already a healthy data of MSMEs on the portal while over a particular period, it will grow to a very high level of let’s say 2-3 crore. This data is giving us exceptional indications towards the way MSME policies should actually be governed in India,” Swain added.
For the uninitiated, businesses only need the promoter’s Aadhaar number to register on the Udyam portal. The portal is integrated with the Income Tax and GST Identification Number (GSTIN) systems. Hence, ‘verified’ details related to the turnover of the business and investment made are easily accessible by the government.
Swain said that with this linking mechanism, the government is “developing a highly verified database of MSMEs whereas earlier the database we had was based on sample surveys, etc. The current 76 lakh registration figure might not sound as impressive when one look at the overall figure of 6.3 crore MSMEs in India but the fact is that we are getting around 20,000 new registrations every day and per week data is about 1.1 lakh.”
While existing MSME schemes, including the ones launched post pandemic such as the Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS), are still available for MSMEs that are registered with UAM and are yet to switch to the Udyam portal, the government might revisit the schemes once it has a much bigger database of businesses on the new portal as hinted by Swain.
“The intent is to consolidate business information of MSMEs including their turnover, GST details, type of business, total employee strength, and more to actually understand where are the policy gaps and how to address them,” a source privy to the development told Financial Express Online on anonymity.
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“So far schemes have been shooting in the dark. Policies are formed based on inputs from some organisations that help some businesses instead of the larger MSME community. How would the government frame the right policies for businesses unless it knows about their performances based on the data related to let’s say turnover or GST, especially after the revision of the MSME definition? Now with the linkages, the government can more easily access the data to understand where they have to focus more,” Manguirish Pai Raiker, Chairman, Assocham Goa Council and CMD, Brown Packaging System told Financial Express Online.
In order to make access to government data on registration of MSMEs, unorganised workers, availability of skilled workforce, etc., more seamless, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her budget speech in February had said that four portals viz., Udyam, e-Shram, National Career Service (NCS), and Atmanirbhar Skilled Employee-Employer Mapping (ASEEM) will be interlinked. The minister had said this will widen their scope and will have live, organic databases, providing G2C, B2C and B2B services.
“These services will relate to credit facilitation, skilling, and recruitment with an aim to further formalise the economy and enhance entrepreneurial opportunities for all,” Sitharaman said in her speech. According to Swain, the interlinking will also help the government in mapping requirements of the employer and job seekers in the MSME sector and would lead to more employment generation.
