A two- day workshop was organised by the Reserve Bank of India, Ranchi Office on December 10 and December 11 for capacity building of the officers of MSME branches of various banks operating in Ranchi district.

In his address at the workshop, Prem Ranjan Prasad Singh, Regional Director, RBI, Jharkhand highlighted the contribution of the MSME sector in the country's economic development and employment generation. Singh said that Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) are making significant contribution in expanding entrepreneurial efforts through business innovations and that MSME promotes entrepreneurship and provides many employment opportunities.

The Regional Director also said that in order to take this sector, which is making a significant contribution to the economy, further, physical infrastructure capability, readiness to adopt technology, capacity building, increasing access to credit and risk capital, prompt or timely payment, there is a need to be sensitive towards entrepreneurs and understand the life cycle of MSME units and provide them adequate credit on time and in this direction cooperation from the banks is expected.

While highlighting the 'PM Vishwakarma Yojana' of Government of India, Singh said that the objective of this scheme is to provide assistance to artisans and craftsmen, so that they are able to move forward in the basic chain of their respective trade. This scheme, apart from other measures, envisages loan assistance at concessional interest rate with interest subsidy support by the Government of India to the beneficiaries.

On this occasion, banks were requested to make people aware about these schemes and identify the beneficiaries and provide timely loan assistance at concessional interest rate.

Officials of MSME branches working in different districts benefited from this workshop. The participants were given training on various topics related to MSME by senior officials of RBI, SIDBI, MSME-DFO and State Bank of India.

One session in the workshop was taken by Bhagwati Devi, President, MVM, Baghima Palkot Farmer Producer Company Limited, Gumla, in which she shared the success journey of her group with the participants. This FPO is dealing in ragi based products and is run entirely by a group of women entrepreneurs.

Deputy General Manager and Assistant General Manager of RBI were also present on the occasion. In the workshop, 31 officials from Bank of India, State Bank of India, Indian Bank, Canara Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank along with other major banks and small finance banks present in the State also participated.