NEW DELHI: The Centre Wednesday approved Strategic Investment Plans (SIPs) of nine states, including Rajasthan, West Bengal and Gujarat, that seek to bring down the cost of compliance and improve access to credit for micro, small and medium enterprises there, a government official told ET.
“A total of Rs 713 crore has been approved for these nine SIPs,” the official added. SIPs of Meghalaya, Chandigarh, Tripura, Nagaland, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh also received go-ahead on Wednesday. So far, 25 states and union territories have submitted SIPs to the ministry of micro, small and medium enterprises since the roll out of the scheme in 2022.
Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra were the early states to submit SIPs, while Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Manipur are yet to submit their SIPs.
“We expect all states, including UTs, to submit their SIPs in 4-5 months,” the official said. The SIPs allow states to identify issues plaguing the MSMEs and ways to address them.
The Centre provides funding support for SIPs under the Raising and Accelerating MSME Performance (RAMP) scheme, which is a World Bank-supported central sector scheme with an outlay of Rs 6,062 crore over five years from 2022-23 to 2026-27.The scheme focuses on issues relating to MSMEs such as financing, marketing and upgrading technology.
It was launched to enhance the outreach of existing schemes of the ministry of micro, small and medium enterprises through active state participation, thereby improving the performance of MSMEs.
Around Rs 1,400 crore is expected to be spent under RAMP in the first two financial years.
“States’ intervention under SIPs could be a programme related to creating awareness about schemes among MSMEs, capacity-building of MSMEs or any other specific intervention that’s needed for a particular state,” said Anil Bhardwaj, secretary general, Federation of Indian Micro and Small & Medium Enterprises.
