Udyam portal gets good response

MSME secretary BB Swain at a virtual event that nearly 6 million MSMEs have registered in around a 15-month period since the launch of the Udyam portal. In the past, it took 5 years to reach 10 million registrations. The registration portal was introduced on July 1, 2020, for paperless and zero-cost registration of businesses in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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“The pandemic has underscored the need to move to a digital platform. This move hasn’t been easy and a lot of adjustment has been required. For some MSMEs, this has become the only mode of surviving. We are getting a good response on the Udyam portal. If you look at the earlier model, it had taken around five years to reach 10 million (registrations), here in 14-15 months, we are reaching almost 6 million,” Swain commented.

The latest annual report from the ministry pointed out that there were 1.02 crores Udyog Aadhaar Memorandum (UAM)-registered MSMEs between September 2015 and June 2020 apart from nearly 22 lakh units registered under Entrepreneur Memorandum (EM) II between 2007 and 2015. The RBI had said that the existing EMs II and/or UAMs of MSMEs obtained before June 30, 2020, will continue to remain valid till March 31, 2021, even as MSMEs had to register on the Udyam portal before March this year.

The senior government official added that the government is promoting e-market linkages for MSMEs to market products at virtual trade fairs and exhibitions. He explained further that “the ministry has developed a dedicated support system for export promotion for MSME sector by establishing 52 export facilitation cells in MSME DIS, MSME Technology Centres, and MSME Testing Centres.” He added that a National Resources Database System is also in the pipeline. This global market intelligence system for MSME units will also be a repository of export-related data on foreign markets.