Our Prime Minister has announced so many things including an infrastructure project of 100 lakh crore rupees. This was a repeatation of earlier I Day promises. It is true that infrastructure sector projects have potential to generate very many jobs, but the nation cannot depend entirely for jobs in this sector only. Even if this “Gati Shakti” announcement is potentially great, since it will come in future, we cannot altogether forget the existing avenues of development and job generation. An ancient Indian wisdom says, “Whoever serve the uncertain by giving up the certain, for him uncertain is already uncertain, the certain also becomes uncertain (A nitishloka in Sanskrit).”

We thus need to protect the ailing MSME sector right now, and the country cannot forget this certain source of livelihood for some uncertain job creation and development measures that our prime minister has announced from the rampart of Lal Qila of Delhi on Independence Day 2021. He has assured a great future for the country for which he will be initiating measures during the Amrit Mahotsav year and beyond upto 75 weeks. He had also promised that many things will be announced even up to the Independence Day of 2023. All these would be achieved in the next 25 years that he called the “Amrit Kaal”.

If we go through his past assurances, such as his “Good Days” promise of 2014, or Doubling of Farmers Income by 2022, et al, we can safely ignore them because his great promises generally tend to fail. We have seen how good days never came for common people, though he has claimed it has already come, which is agreed to by only the super-rich for whom his policies are proving greatly beneficial. His demonetization announced in November 2016 proved to be thunderbolt for millions of MSMEs who just did not survive, while million others are still struggling to survive. Almost all MSMEs had to reduce their production and millions were even producing only 25 per cent of their capacity. Even when MSMEs were staggering GST was hurriedly implemented from July1, 2017 for which neither government machinery was ready nor our business and enterprises. This proved fatal to million other MSMEs. This resulted in unprecedented job loss and by the beginning of 2018, the unemployment rate in the country was 6.1 per cent which was 45 years high.

The crisis was chiefly driven by policy experiments of Modi government coupled with impoverishment of the public in general due to job loss and drying up of their source of income. It led to great demand crisis in the Indian market. Due to loss of demand, even the produced products were stuck up in the store. MSMEs needed to reduce their production due to lack of demand. The situation had been deteriorating day by day, and then the COVID-19 struck the country in the beginning of 2020. On March 24, 2020, our PM Modi had announced general lockdown of the country which enforced all the business and industry of the country to shut down, except those which were in emergency production and supply.

It proved the last straw on million other MSMEs which were already struggling to survive resulting in unprecedented job loss. They were suffering the crisis of demand, but with containment measures in place, they suffered the additional crisis of supply of even inputs for production. Though the economy started unlocking in phased manner from June 1, 2020, due to shortage of workers, lack of logistics for supply of input and output, lack of money in hand and sufficient access to finance, and the restriction of containment measures, the millions of other MSMEs even lost any hope of their revival.

In May 2020, PM Modi had announced COVID-19 response package, and the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced a special package of Rs 3 lakh crore for MSMEs in the form of access to collateral free loan. However, the scheme was not being implemented properly, and by June 2021, a World Bank report said that out of 58 million MSMEs, over, 40 per cent lacked formal access to finance. The report had come after loss of 15 lakh jobs in a single month of May chiefly due to shutting down of MSMEs or scaling down their operation during the second wave of COVID-19. RBI had announced certain other support in June 2021, even when last year’s announcements were hardly half-implemented. Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme has been increased from 3 to 4.5 lakh crore, but what is its value if not given to ailing MSMEs in time?

Despite such a great suffering of the MSMEs and subsequent job losses of millions, the sector could not attract the attention of our Prime Minister, who rather proudly talked about the reforms – especially the four controversial labour codes, for which even states, business, and industry are not yet ready. Central Trade Unions have labelled them as anti-worker and pro-corporate.

Last year, even definition of MSMEs was changed to accommodate bigger industrial enterprises and therefore the larger share of the announced package went to them, not the existing MSMEs. Only a few days ago government has announced initiative to include small traders and retailers also in the MSMEs category to improve ease of doing business, which means the share of existing MSMEs prior to the announcement of the first package will further be reduced.

Needless to say India needs focused policies and programs to revive the dying MSMEs now, during the 75th year of Independence. May our PM allow Amrit Mahotsav (celebration of Independence) of 75 weeks also to MSMEs, so that they may prosper during the 25 years of Amrit Kaala head. Let them allow to dream for their future by specially tailored programmes rather than on merely ‘great sounding words’. (IPA Service)