STANDING TALL

HE MICRO, SMALL and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the country go by many sobriquets such as “engine of growth”, “powerhouse of the economy” and many more. That’s not surprising considering they have over 63 million units employing over 110 million people and are a significant contributor to India’s economic growth with over 30 per cent contribution to the GDP and over 48 per cent to exports. Around 95 per cent of all industrial units forming a part of this sector constitute a cornerstone for economic prosperity in our society.

However, MSME is the only sector that took back-to-back beatings in the last few years. “First, it was demonetisation, then implementation of GST and now the on-going pandemic has broken the spine of the sector,” says S.N. Mishra, Founder and CEO of Microtech Industries, a small enterprise which is a pioneer in low-grade voltage equipment in Haryana.

According to Asian Development Bank Institute’s working paper, ‘MSMEs in Developing Asia’, the sector experienced considerably reduced employment and sales revenues in the first few months after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. “MSMEs were disproportionately affected by the pandemic. Raw material costs have shot up 30-50 per cent in a year while businesses are still trying to recover to pre-pandemic