New Delhi, Apr 3 (KNN) Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), the principal financial institution engaged in the promotion, financing and development of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), celebrated its foundation day on Friday as ''Swavalamban Prerna Diwas''.

In the past few years, SIDBI has been celebrating this day by picking a theme. This year a 60 minutes programme was organized across branch offices/resident representative offices of the bank where the speakers discussed about their growth story/life trajectory including the challenges/problems they faced in their respective businesses/enterprises, mechanism which they adopted to overcome those challenges/ problems, things that worked or didn’t work for them etc., with participants/stakeholders so as to motivate them to pursue their goal.

These speakers were development partners/existing branch customers who have achieved significant successor were proactively responsive/emerged stronger during COVID-19 times or impacted underserved/unserved sections of the society/Non-Governmental Organisations/Institutions of   repute/role models who have emerged as national or institutional heroes.

The objective was to benefit the concerned stakeholders or participants by providing them the experiential learning, motivation and the necessary impetus/push to realize their entrepreneurial dream.

On this occasion, V Satya Venkata Rao, Deputy Managing Director of SIDBI said, “We salute the spirit of MSMEs who faced challenges of COVID-19and emerged stronger. As we step into another year, we shall continue to take our mandate of serving the MSME ecosystem through credit and development plus engagements on financial and non-financial side. Besides encouraging more youths to join the path of entrepreneurship, we shall continue to bring solutions to enterprise ecosystem.”

On foundation day, SIDBI released an e-booklet that captures the inspirational Swavalambis/Homepreneurs who have stood the ground of entrepreneurship amidst challenges. SIDBI also launched the annual edition of Swavalamban Kadam which documents different engagements which are contributing to society and ecosystem. The e-booklet brings out the differentiator partnership of SIDBI and Ushaand its impact.  The partnership has been on women centric initiatives for poverty alleviation, employment generation and fostering entrepreneurship within the rural landscape.

Today 1,700 Swavalamban Silai Schools have come up in 24 districts spanning across 7 states. Almost all these 1,700 Swavalambis have overcome challenges with their determination to shape dreams. They crossed rough waters of society/family pressures, walked the tight rope of disbelief to self-confidence and now are poised to be role models.

With an adoption of Vision 2.0, SIDBI has reoriented its focus on promotion and development with thrust on MSMEs, particularly the unserved/underserved pockets/segments and entrepreneurship development.  SIDBI has been taking various major initiatives for kindling entrepreneurship as also the MSME ecosystem and addressing their challenges.