Champions portal: MSME grievances resolved jump 2X in over 12 months

The portal was launched for MSMEs to register their issues around finance, delayed payments, raw materials procurement, labour issues, regulatory permissions etc. (Image: Pixabay)

Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: MSME grievance portal — Creation and Harmonious Application of Modern Processes for Increasing the Output and National Strength (Champions) has resolved 40,201 grievances or complaints from MSMEs as of November 21, 2021, since its launch on June 1, 2020, by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The number of complaints resolved has jumped over 2X in the past nearly 15 months from 18,723 as of September 9, 2020. In the past three months, the number has grown from over 37,000 grievances redressed till August this year. The data till November this year was shared by MSME Minister Narayan Rane in Rajya Sabha in the ongoing winter session.

The portal was launched for MSMEs to register their issues around finance, delayed payments, raw materials procurement, labour issues, regulatory permissions etc. and seek their redressal. The complaints registered on the Champions portal are routed subject-wise to concerned branch/bureau/office heads under the MSME Ministry to attend them within three days. The matter “should not remain inconclusive after seven days” AK Sharma, former MSME Secretary had said in a note launching the trial version of the Champions portal last year. For unresolved complaints, the “top leadership of the MSME Ministry” will “pro-actively take (them) up,” Sharma had said.

Apart from registering their grievances, MSMEs can offer suggestions and ideas to the government, check government schemes offered to MSMEs, file applications for delayed payments, and more. In October last year, the MSME Ministry had announced the portal’s integration with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to get “social media insights relating to MSME”, “know the pulse of entire MSME sector without stakeholders going to the portal”, “know emotions of people involved with or dependent on MSMEs in real-time” and more, as per the ministry’s statement.

“Over a period of time, it will create an artificial intelligence kind of a thing where we would know, for example, in which state MSMEs face more problems related to credit and against which institution,” Rajiv Chawla, Chairman at the MSME association — IamSMEofIndia had told Financial Express Online.