-Ayshwaria Lakshmi

 A K Sharma, MSME secretary said that Udyam, new registration process for MSME launched nearly two months back, has over 3 lakh registered with them. 

“Now the speed is going up,” Secretary in the MSME Ministry A K Sharma said. Sharma further went on to caution the public saying, “I would also like to caution that we have been hearing that there were many fake websites which have emerged in the market claiming that they would enable the registration process,” the Secretary said. Apart from, he further added that a new scheme called Fund of Funds scheme will soon be rolled out.

“The other scheme we are working on is the Fund of Funds scheme, most of the formalities are over and in a very short while we will go to the market and invite private equity funds and venture capital funds,” Sharma said at a CII mobility week last month.  Previously, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in May had announced Rs 50,000-crore equity infusion through Fund of Funds for MSMEs.

He further elaborated that on the funding of the  scheme, one part, Rs 10,000 crore, would be given by  the government and rest, Rs 40,000 crore is to be “leveraged through the market through VC and PE firms.” This scheme intends to help businesses who are in their nascent and initial stages, where raising funds through the help of professional corporations or venture capitalists is not possible. This also proposes to buy up to 15 per cent growth capital in high credit MSMEs.

Sitharaman while launching the fund as part of Atma Nirbhar relief package, said this fund would have a mother and few daughter funds through which it would operate. This would also enable the MSME’s to expand in size and capacity to list them in the main board of stock exchanges.

A K Sharma also mentioned that the government is “aggressively” wanting to make more MSME list in the exchange , which in turn would help in the growth of MSME.