Now, credit access for MSMEs to be easy: Union Secy

MSME Union Secretary Arun Kumar Panda lauded the Central Tool Room Training Centre (CTTC), Bhubaneswar’s facility and said it is one of the best in the country.

Speaking at the first seminar of MSME International Trade Fair on ‘Credit and Marketing Linkage to MSMEs and Exporters’ here on Wednesday, Dr Panda said several parts of the Mangalyaan (Orbital Mission to Mars) Mission were manufactured and supplied by a consortium of MSMEs through CTTC, Bhubaneswar.

He informed that more than one crore business units have been registered under GST, of which 97 per cent are MSMEs. “By registering under GST, these MSMEs have got an opportunity to change over from ‘informal sector’ to the ‘formal sector’ and will have advantage of formal sector in terms of getting credit from the formal financial institutions,” he said.

Dr Panda called upon MSMEs to take advantage of cluster development schemes such as MSE-CDP and SFURTI and e-marketing by registering under GeM. He also spoke about the web portals namely, ‘MSME Samadhan’ to address the problem of delayed payment and ‘MSME Sambandh’ containing information on procurement from MSMEs by the Central PSUs.

Additional Chief Secretary, MSME Department Odisha LN Gupta stated that 54 clusters have been identified in the State, which can be assisted under MSE-CDP Scheme of the Government for improved facility and better technology for the MSMEs.

He stated that nearly 40,300 MSME units have ‘gone into production’ (GIP) in the State during the current FY employing 1,15,000 persons. He added that in order to improve quality of MSME products and their marketing, a drive to implement ZED (Zero Effect and Zero Defect) in collaboration with Quality Council of India and GeM (Government e-Market Place) is being initiated. He assured that provisions of Odisha Procurement Preference Policy will be enforced.

SBI, Bhubaneswar, GM Sudhir Thakore spoke about the importance attached by banks for lending to MSMEs.

MD, NCDC, Sundeep Nayak spoke on the role of NCDC in financing cooperative societies and proposed for convergence between MSMEs and cooperatives in the State through their schemes so that the Industrial Cooperatives can take advantage of NCDC schemes.

General Manager, Corporate Banking Group, Export - Import Bank of India, Mumbai Utpal Gokhale spoke about the facilities like line of credit (LOC) offered by EXIM Bank.

Customs Commissioner Deep Shekhar, Additional DG, Foreign Trade, Ministry of Commerce Anita Sengupta and Secretary, OASME Satwik Swain, among others, spoke.