New Delhi, Feb 8 (KNN) Federation of Indian Micro Small & Medium Enterprises (FISME) - India’s largest MSME body, has welcomed the changes proposed by the Cabinet in definition of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME).

The Government has proposed to change the MSME definition from the one based on fixed investment in plant and machinery to one based on turnover.

The enterprises having annual sales turnover below Rupees five crore will be defined as ‘Micro’, ones having turnover above Rupees five crore and below seventy five crore as ‘Small’ and above Rupees seventy five but below Rupees two hundred fifty as ‘Medium’.

“This is a historic change as since 1950s Small Scale Industries (SSIs) and later MSMEs have been traditionally defined based on fixed investment in plant and machine”, says Dinesh Tripathi, President of FISME.   

FISME has consistently lobbied for change in definition as it termed fixed investment criteria as flawed.  Their proposal has been to define Small units having turnover upto Rs. 50 crore and Medium upto Rs. 200 crore.

FISME however demanded a fair treatment to Medium segment.

‘Now that Medium enterprises are part of a seamless turnover based criteria from micro to small to medium, Government should also do away with clauses of excluding Medium sector from various MSME promotional schemes’, Dinesh Tripathi said. 

The move also aligns the definition with GST regime. Recently Finance Minister also announced during Union Budget that the benefit of reduced Corporate tax be extended to Companies having turnover upto Rupee 250 crore. (KNN/AB)