The Union Budget presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley appears to have enlivened the mood in the MSME (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises) camp in Andhra Pradesh.
Mr. Jaitley announced to create a healthy eco-system for the venture capital in the MSME and he proposed to establish a Rs. 10,000 crore fund to act as a catalyst to attract private capital by way of providing equity, quasi equity, soft loans and other risk capital for start-up companies.
“This is a big boost to the MSME sector. In any economy agriculture and manufacturing sectors are the key drivers, and this is a welcome gesture,” said managing director of Better Casting and former CII Chairman (Krishna District) J.S.R.K. Prasad.
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Along with the venture capital fund the government has given many indirect benefits to the MSME sector. “It proposes to increase the duty on non-valued products and reduce the duty on import of products that are subject to value addition. For example, the import duty on steel smelting scrap has been reduced from 5 per cent to 2 per cent, and this will make the casting sector globally competitive,” said Mr. Prasad.
According to Arunabh Chowdary, managing partner of Haripriya Industries, an MSME in Autonagar- Vizag, the announcement of an industrial corridor between Vizag- Chennai will open up the doors for many MSMEs, which can serve as allied industries.
“The PCPIR is in the offing between Kakinada and Vizag, the FM has proposed for a hardware hub at Kakinada and the region between East and West Godavari and Krishna is known for agriculture. The new proposal should encourage entrepreneurs to set-up allied industries in support of the main industries,” he said.
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The other indirect benefits that the MSME sector gets is allocation of Rs. 200 crore for incubation centres, amendment of Apprentice Act for churning out skilled industry specific workforce, setting up of the eBiz platform for better service, transparency and accountability and allocation of technology development fund of Rs. 100 crore to support SMEs. All these benefits will definitely spurt a growth in the MSME sector, said Mr. J.S.R.K. Prasad.