How to Strengthen Make in India MSMEs and Cut Imports?

The government of India has a vision to strengthen the MSMEs engaged in Make in India. The IT community takes this seriously and has many suggestions to offer about this scheme. DQ Channels talked to some IT resellers and partners, to understand what they think of Make in India and MSMEs. Following are the responses -

Mahesh Kurup of Ozone Computer Services said, "The entrepreneurs in the MSME sector are the innovators and Technology drivers. For the MSME sector to grow in India, two basic things in the industry would have to grow. These are the biggest Hindrance level the sector faces. The first one is the Labour reforms, this had to happen. Any industry with the labour of fewer than 100 employees should be out of all the statutory factors of the government regarding the workforce. Maintaining a statutory level with small numbers is highly tiresome and should have some relaxation. Proper government insurance schemes to take care of medical facilities at a lower cost should also be provided to the above-mentioned case. There are places where we cannot find an ESI Hospital. In such cases, an insurance scheme would be better."

"For an entrepreneur at the MSME level to reinvest his profit in the company, the income tax of up to 2 crores should be reduced 10 percent. Only this would allow the entrepreneur to reinvest the profit into capital."  

– Mahesh Kurup, Ozone Computer Services

Vallabha Desai, VAPT Consultants, Bengaluru said, "Make in India does not limit to manufacturing. MSME is not only in manufacturing and they should give focus on the technology building aspect as well. Industry 4.0 is more about digitisation; this requires a lot of area in the tech world to be built. We need to focus on software development, mobile applications, cybersecurity and service-oriented can be focused. Our service-related companies have less funding and need help in connecting with the global market. We need more revenue to provide more R&D. Secondly. Even today, they give support to those who are financially strong. When we go to banks for a loan, we need to show a minimum of three years of transaction even for a start-up".

"We need more support from the government side. There are many ways to support like marketing, procurement and more. It would help if they gave more focus to small scale industry. We need a proper road map to help these companies."  

- Vallabha Desai, VAPT Consultants, Bengaluru

TG Dandapani, Retired CIO, TVS Motors said, "For the sustained growth of manufacturing industries, not only the role of large-scale enterprises will work, but the medium and small scale should also play a role. At this juncture, the adoption of 4.0 techniques and technology would help to improve productivity, quality, traceability, sustaining and complying with the environmental norms. This is important though the large the scale industries have already adopted this, unless the MSMEs adopt these techniques and technology, and improve in line with the large-scale industries, the improvement sustained by large-scale industries will not be last long. Therefore, it is essential for adoption to happen at the grass-roots level and benefits coming on board would last over a period of time ensuring competitiveness for the Indian industry. In this direction, to improve productivity and quality, it should ensure traceability."

"At the Large factory level, traceability prevails but they buy materials from the MSMEs. So, traceability should also percolate to the lowest level. There is a need for the MSME to adopt these to grow in a sustained manner". 

--TG Dandapani, Retired CIO of TVS Motors

R Sridhar of Triangle Technologies said, "Manufacturing is the key to the growth of MSMEs. Most MSMEs are in the business of manufacturing intermediaries and not the finished product. They heavily depend on big and large-scale manufacturers for their growth."

"For the large manufacturers, the pricing, quality and timely inventory are the key issues. Only If the local MSMEs can deliver the above, then it’s workable. We need to focus on our strengths and build on them as IT & ITes have done over the past 2 decades."

– R Sridhar, Triangle Technologies, Bengaluru

These view points show that the resellers and MSMEs have thought seriously about this issue and the government should take their opinion seriosly.

--By Ayshwaria Lakshmi