SIDBI ties up with GAME to expand services to MSMEs

New Delhi, Jun 3 (KNN) Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), the principal financial institution engaged in the promotion, financing and development of MSMEs has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with ‘Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship’ to help MSMEs address their challenges faced during the Covid crisis.

The broad themes covered under the MoU include expanding credit access, increasing formalization, building competitive clusters, and improving the legal framework for ease of doing business.

''This is part of SIDBI's host of developmental measures rolled out to commemorate the World MSME day on June 27 as a Developmental Week,'' the lender said in a statement on Friday.

Under its project SAHAS, SIDBI has soft launched “Swavalamban Chair for MSME Solutions”, at Government Engineering College, Thrissur. The Chair shall have action research and inducing entrepreneurship culture as its core thrust. It is supported by Swavalamaban Resource Facility which has been setup in partnership with Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, United Kingdom.

It shall bring product/process solutions to enterprises in the region, support youth under mentorship of professors to map the local pain points, shape their solutions/idea, test, validate and launch their entrepreneurial ventures. The Chair shall also foster inter-college learnings.

With an objective to handhold budding entrepreneurs, SIDBI has provided support to Confederation of Indian Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (CIMSME) for setting up ‘Swavalamban Suvidha Kendra’.

''The Kendra shall address information asymmetry challenges and render responsive solutions to inquisitive youth, serve anxious enterprises facing Covid challenges, assist in Udyam registration and enable Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) to go for digital solutions like Udyamimitra portal, Stand up mitra  portal, PSBLoans  in 59 minutes etc,'' the statement added.

Sivasubramanian Ramann, Chairman and Managing Director of SIDBI said, “Our role is to empower entrepreneurs and encourage entrepreneurship during these challenging times. Keeping this in mind, through the various initiatives, we are planning to support the enterprise development cycle comprising ideation, setting up, revive and thrive as also stepping up.''

''On one hand we are working towards identifying more livelihood entrepreneurs and on the other hand we are taking steps to build their capacity for emerging stronger. With these measures fructifying, we hope to create a society with more job creators rather than job seekers,'' he added.

SIDBI further said that to identify entrepreneurial opportunities for migrant population impacted by Covid, rapid profiling in 11 states namely, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu have been carried out.

In these states, SIDBI has set up Project Management Units based on the recommendations of the UK Sinha Committee on MSMEs.

The inputs are expected to facilitate decisions on entrepreneurial ventures at local/regional levels.