Union Minister for MSME Kalraj Mishra in August 2014 said the proposed new policy governing the industrial activity in the MSME sector would be “finalised in the next 3-4 months”.

Speaking at an MSME industry workshop in Hyderabad, he said the details of the new policy highlighted in the recent Budget speech, aimed at “redefining” the MSME sector activity, was being chalked out by a select committee formed with officials from the Reserve Bank of India, Ministry of Finance and the MSME ministry.

“The new MSME policy would primarily seek to redefine the sector in terms of annual turnover, capital employed and the labour engaged at the factory. It would also look into tweaking the RBI guidelines for treating nonperforming assets (NPAs) in the MSME sector. We are examining the statespecific policies in place in various states to come out with an effective national MSME policy,” he added.

The policy would also reaffirm the existing laid out mandatory procurement of MSME-originated products by the public sector units (PSU). According to the MSME ministry, the new policy will make it compulsory for PSUs to procure 20 per cent of their need-based products from MSMEs, including four percent from small industry units operated by women entrepreneurs.

Plan to set up 15 tool rooms

On the Centre’s proposal to set up 15 tools rooms in the country, Mishra said the ministry had finalised locations for nine of these and was in the process of evaluating sites for the rest of them. One such tool room would be come up in Visakhapatnam on 20 acres land allotted by the state government. Confirming this, Arvind Patwari, director of MSME Development Institute in Hyderabad, said the proposed facility entailed aninvestment of Rs 120 crore and was capable of training 200-300 trainees.

Launches JobsDialog

Mishra launched JobsDialog, the country’s first mobile-based recruitment solution designed by the city-based TMI Group. According to TMI, the product is designed keeping in view the unique and dynamic talent requirements of MSMEs. JobsDialog has a tie-up with Idea Cellular which provides access to jobseekers who are subscribers of Idea. Alternatively, the jobseekers can give a missed call to register themselves. In turn, TMI short lists people who match the requirement of different SMEs.