A Dawn Of Hope For MSMEs

The Story of Indian MSMEs: Despair to Dawn of Hope is an impassionate account of the journey of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector in India, narrated by a distinguished banker and economist, who has special interest in the sector.

Dr B. Yerram Raju has been with State Bank of India and later with IDRBT and NIRD, and has decades of multisector experience, specifically in MSMEs and agriculture. In the book, he takes a distinct approach emphatically stating that people start enterprises and put their only dwelling house or other as collateral security, with the aim of earning profit and making a respectable living. He vividly narrates how MSMEs are defined both in India and other countries. One of his recommendations is to use the twin criteria of turnover and employment with specific thresholds for 2 reasons. First, the turnover definition enables several unorganized enterprises in the sector to come into the fold of organized. Second, it paves the way for increased direct and indirect employment opportunities.

However, MSMEs in the country are handicapped by a litany of problems shortage of capital, redi take, bureaucracy, corruption and a lack of sympathy and understanding at the operational level. Most importantly, even while intentions are respected and promises are held out, there is no way these materializing. There is no way a small entrepreneur in distress getting any succor. While the governments at the center and the states for decades have announced a variety of policies and initiatives to promote the MSME sector, there are bottlenecks at the operationalization level and the entrepreneurs are left in the lurch.