The Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME) is poised to take its sustainable development initiatives till the grass root level, by empowering women even in remote villages through creating livelihood for them, tells Mr. Ram Mohan Mishra, Development Commissioner & Additional Secretary, MSME. He said the MSME Ministry has launched a scheme for supporting and harnessing the social enterprise segment as they are the key growth drivers for creating and sustaining new MSMEs.
Mr. Ram Mohan Mishra was speaking at the Social Enterprise Conclave – 2018, wherein the Union Minister of State (Ind. Ch.), Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises Mr. Giriraj Singh was the Chief Guest who addressed hundreds of women entrepreneurs who had come from various remote Indian villages. Empowering of women by creating livelihood for them is essential to attain India’s growth objectives, he said, adding that his ministry was already working in that direction.
To make all round development, India needs more indigenously developed technologies for the optimum utilization of resources of the country for the sustainable development, emphasized the Minister adding further that for him women and the produce that is obtained from the cow are key to the development of villages in the country.
Emphasizing that overall social development will ensure a greater India, Mr. Giriraj Singh said that the Prime Minister’s vision of doubling farmers income is an achievable goal only when we utilize all the resources available in rural areas like cow-dung, cow-urine, discarded human hair and agri waste products by turning them into bio-compost or utility products.
MSME is aggressively promoting Prime Minister’s employment generation program aimed at generating self-employment opportunities through establishment of micro-enterprises in the non-farm sector by helping traditional artisans and umemployed youth in rural as well as urban areas.
Moreover, the Ministry has launched several schemes and programmes for skill development of youth so that they may be gainfully employed, tells Ms. Jyotsna Sitling, Joint Secretary, M/o Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. As far as women entrepreneurs go, the Government has provided financial assistance to women entrepreneurs in setting up 14,768 projects in 2016-17, belonging to both rural and urban areas of the country. All these efforts are being undertaken so as to create a sound economic base at the grass root levels, even in the remote villages of the country.
“MSMEs play a crucial role in providing employment opportunities and are complimentary to big industries, contributing greatly to the socio-economic development of the country,” adds Ram Moham Mishra. Some other schemes worth talking about include Solar Charkha Mission, which aims at contributing to the Green Economy by providing solar charkha units. Another innovating scheme is the Sweet Revolution aimed at increasing the production of honey. Attempt is also being made to revive the sick khadi units, which will produce hand-spun and hand-woven khadi fabric.
Some of the important people present on the occasion included Ms. Jyotsna Sitling (Jt. Secy, MSME), Ms. Alka Arora (Jt. Secy., MSME), Lt. Gen. J.S. Ahluwalia (President, Institute of Directors), Mr. Atul Bhagat (Head, UN Environment Country Office, India), Mr. S.R. Gupta (ED, Lupin Foundation), Ms. Malavika Chauhan (Tata Trust), Ms. Kalpana Pant (ED, Chaitanya), Mr. P. Satish (ED, Sa-Dhan), Dr. D.P. Kar (Smart Village), Mr. Harsh Kumar (Niswarth), Dr. Jagadish Hiremut (Ace Embedded Intensiv Care Units), Mr. Manoj Chaturvedi (Sarvodaya Ashram), Ms. Kanchan Tai Parulekar (Swyamsiddha), Prof. Suryaprakash Goud (National Institute of MSME, Hyderabad), Mr. Prasad Dahpute (Varhad Capital), Mr. Abhijit Sharma (Rural Finance Market), Mr. Kalyan Basu (Invoice Mart), Mr. SJ Bharali (Asomi Finance), Dr. R.B. Barman (Former Chairman, National Statistical Commission), Mr. Raghunathan (D4E Networks), Dr. K. Jayakumar (IAS, Addl. Chief Secy. Sikkim), Ms. Atreyi Choudhury (Partner and Group Head, NRI Consulting & Solutions).
Social activists, representatives of NGOs, entrepreneurs, research organizations, finance and business experts from different parts of the country, who work in the field of micro, small and medium entrepreneurship, deliberated upon issues related to social enterprises during the day long conclave.
