Micro, small and medium enterprises are among the most important pillars of India's economy and the government is working to make the sector stronger and more developed, Minister of State for MSME Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma said on Monday.
"We will also work to ensure that interrelationship between the MSME sector and other important pillars of the Indian economy are further strengthened as India grows," the minister said.
Addressing FICCI's Annual MSME Summit, Verma urged the industry and other stakeholders to work with the government to make India a USD 5 trillion economy along with becoming self-reliant.
He said there are 6.3 crore Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in the country which are providing 11 crore jobs.
"MSMEs contribute around 30 per cent to our GDP and have a share of 50 per cent of the income generated from total exports," he said.
Further, the minister said that the government is taking continuous steps to strengthen Indian MSMEs and PMEGP (Prime Minister's Employment Generation Programme), launched last financial year, was a step in this direction. Under this scheme in the year 2021-22, a total of 1.03 lakh new units have been set up in the manufacturing and services sector.
The government, Verma said, is also working to ensure that by taking advantage of the full potential of the MSMEs, there contribution to the Indian economy should be doubled.
"For this, we will ensure to remove the external barriers and provide strength to MSMEs in order to make India self-reliant.
"We are also working to develop the culture of becoming entrepreneurs in the youth, provide loans to MSMEs, improve their quality and increasing their competitiveness to increase their efficiency," he added.