Observing that MSMEs are more affected by regulations than large companies, he said the prime minister has taken a major step towards deregulation and a task force under the cabinet secretary is working on it.
Subrahmanyam was addressing a gathering after launching ‘the Digital Excellence for Growth and Enterprise’ (Dx-EDGE), a platform to empower MSMEs with the tools, knowledge and ecosystem needed to become future-ready, competitive and resilient.
Dx-EDGE is a national initiative spearheaded by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) with the support of NITI Frontier Tech Hub (NITI FTH) and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to drive digital transformation across India’s MSMEs.
The Niti Aayog CEO further said it is a fact that some of the big manufacturers have moved to India, and cited the example of mobile phones, terming it as a success story of the PLI (production linked incentive) initiatives.
The other side of the story is, he said, that 95% of what goes into mobile phone manufacturing is being imported. “We are working on getting the ecosystem to India. Niti is working on a programme to improve India’s penetration of global value chains through development of intermediate goods which are largely manufactured by MSMEs,” Subrahmanyam said.Subrahmanyam also said India needs to invest in micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) with focus on deregulating the sector and emphasis on education and skilling if it wants to become a $30 trillion economy.
“The two most important areas for India to become a $30 trillion economy is investing in its people and investing in MSMEs,” he said.
“Without investing in the growth of MSMEs, to think that you will become a developed economy is a mirage,” he said, adding if you don’t invest in people, you have a challenge.
Calling MSME a misnomer, Subrahmanyam said everybody pays lip service to MSMEs but actually, does anybody do much for MSMEs?
“It’s a very difficult thing. MSMEs have very, very unique characters. First of all, the MSME itself is a misnomer. You have micro, you have small and you have medium. There are very few commonalities between the three,” he said, adding that the classification has so much diversity and that is the biggest challenge for the Indian economy.
