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The government has announced far reaching structural reforms that would help India’s small and medium businesses to catapult from the current 10 percent growth.

Addressing a gathering of small and medium enterprises (SME) organized by Network18 on Tuesday, Uday Kumar Varma, Secretary, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Ministry said that the government was planning to provide substantial subsidy to SMEs for using modern information technology tools, such as cloud computing, to improve industry performance. ”The ministry has almost finalized the scheme. We are ready to provide liberal subsidy to industry associations in cloud computing,” he said.

Varma, however, added, “I don’t think the sector requires a lot of financial subsidy now; competence is an areas where there is a need to focus for substantial future growth. Overall, the SME sector is poised for a significant role in the future economic growth of the country.”

In an initiative that would change the slow process of registration, the ministry has proposed to create a common platform for electronic registration of the MSME entrepreneurs. Naming it another game changers that will impact the growth of the sector immensely in future, the MSME secretary also talked about significance of the SME Exchange.

Markets regulator Sebi in September this year gave permission to BSE to launch its much-touted SME Exchange that will offer a platform to small and medium companies to raise funds from the primary and debt markets. The BSE is expected to start the functioning of an exchange for SMEs later this month.

Applauding the sector, he also said that MSME was the only industry that was not shaken by the economic crisis and helped India grow even when the globe was suffering from meltdown.

On technology, Varma said keeping the sector abreast with the upcoming technology was the only way ahead for the SME sector. On marketing front Varma suggested better use of IT-enabled service in the sector.

On the shortage of skilled labor in the SME industry, the secretary said that the country was gradually making progress there and by 2022, the country would have 15 million skilled workforce in the MSME segment. He emphasized on the need of training programmes for the sector to battle the problem of talent shortage.

Varma also said, “ The SME sector at present faces problems at many fronts—finance, technology, marketing and talent shortage. When it comes to finance, the sector is still treated as a suspect. The sector has to emerge from there first.”

Also present at the event who spoke at length about the sector were Lakshman Gugulothu, CMD, BSE SME Exchange, HP Kumar, CME, National Small Industries Corporation, KV Srinivasan, CEO, Reliance Commercial Finance & Reliance Home Finance and Yogesh Dixit, head, SME ratings, CRISIL. Major players in the sector apart from the upcoming entrepreneurs also attended the SME Leaders Conclave.

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BSE, Ministry, MSME, Network18, SEBI, SME, Technology, Uday Kumar Varma