Ahead of ‘Stand up India Scheme’, MSME Ministry starts consultation with MSME Federations on 'National SC/ST hub'

New Delhi, Apr 4 (KNN) Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be launching the “Stand up India scheme” and a Web portal for the scheme on April 5, 2016 at Sector 62, Noida.

To complement the initiative Ministry of MSME has announced setting up of nationwide ‘SC/ST hubs’ to provide further professional support to SC/ST entrepreneurs in to market their products to Government Departments and Public Sector Undertakings.

The “Stand up India Scheme” is being launched to promote entrepreneurship among Scheduled Caste/Schedule Tribe and Women for loans in the range of Rs. 10 Lakhs to Rs. 100 Lakhs

As successful marketing is essential for success of any entrepreneur, Government propose to handhold SC /ST entrepreneurs to supply to the huge public procurement market.

In this regard, the Development Commissioner, MSME, will take a meeting with the leading Industry Federation and Chambers on 7th April, 2016.

Government has already announced Public Procurement Order for micro and small enterprises in 2012, which mandates all Government Department and  Public Sector Undertakings to source at least 20% of their total procurements every year from  the micro and small entrepreneurs, of which 4%  of the total procurements have to be from SC/ST entrepreneurs.

During a recent review it has been found that supplies from the SC/ST entrepreneurs to Government procurement is miniscule in comparison to the assigned target.

The objectives of setting up of the ‘SC/ST hubs’ in  the important clusters will be to  provide adequate information to the SC/ St entrepreneurs  about the scope for supplying to Government, procedure to be followed and quality to be maintained and also to handhold in fulfilling the procedural requirements.

At the meeting with MSME Federations on 7th  April, morning, Government propose to discuss the ways and means to  running the SC/ST hub effectively so that large number of SC/ST Entrepreneurs benefit.

The setting up of the ‘MSME Hubs’ was announced by the Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley in his budget speech. (KNN/ DB)