Category: Entrepreneurship

Export Policy for MSMES

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E-Commerce is widely considered as a medium to reduce costs related to penetration and sustainability of exporters in international markets. Indian MSMEs stand to benefit from the enhanced visibility provided by e-commerce platforms. Improved infrastructure, competitive pricing and reduced costs associated with marketing and outreach of products over a digital platform contribute to promoting online sales.

Government of India has taken several measures to enhance the exports by Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). These include efforts made under Make in India Programme, Promotion of Ease of Doing Business, improved availability of credit through MUDRA, Stand up India.  Further, Ministry of MSME has established 52 Export Facilitation Centers (EFCs) across the country with an aim to provide requisite mentoring and handholding support to MSEs in exporting their products and services to the foreign market; and 102  Enterprise Development Centers (EDCs) have been setup with the aim to build a network of entrepreneurial leaders by providing professional mentoring and handholding support services to existing as well as aspiring MSMEs with special focus on rural enterprises on continuous basis. These EDCs act as “One-stop-shop” and provide services under components including Awareness, Incubation, Enterprise Facilitation etc. In addition to these, Ministry is also implementing International Cooperation Scheme for enhancing the marketability of products and services in the MSME sector by facilitating visit /participation of MSMEs in international exhibitions /trade fairs/buyer-seller meet etc. abroad and also holding International conferences/seminars/workshops in India, for technology infusion, exploring business opportunities, joint ventures etc. Also, Cluster Development Programme is being implemented by Office of Development Commissioner(MSME) for enhancing the productivity and competitiveness as well as capacity building of Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) to increase demand of domestic products in global markets.

Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME) has taken multiple initiatives for enhancing participation of MSMEs in e-commerce, which include:

  • Procurement and Marketing Support (PMS) Scheme: Under this Scheme, the sub-component of “Adoption of e-Commerce by Micro Enterprises” has been introduced. This new component includes providing financial assistance for selling products or services by Micro Enterprises (up to 10 new products) through e-commerce portals.
  • Portal of National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC): NSIC, a PSU under the Ministry of MSME has launched MSME Global Mart Portal (www.msmemart.com) – a B2B e-commerce marketing platform for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), which provides Global Trade Leads, Tender Information, Franchise Opportunities, Data on Used Machineries, etc.
  • E-commerce portal of Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC): KVIC a statutory body under the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises has also launched a portal ekhadiindia.com for B2C 
  • outreach, which enables all businesses to have a global reach with Interactivity, Immediacy and Ease of Adaptation.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Micro Small and Medium Enterprises, Shri Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

Press Release 31 March 2022

Legislative Drafting

Posted on by Business So Simple in Entrepreneurship, Legal awareness

Chapter 9 of the Manual of the Parliamentary Procedures in the Government of India provides procedures for legislation and the Legislative Department follows the procedure stated in that Manual while drafting laws. The Ministry/ Department to whom a subject matter is allocated under the Government of India (Allocation of Business) Rules, 1961 formulates the legislative proposals in consultation with experts and stake holders as well as all interested persons and authorities concerned. The Legislative Department prepares draft laws in consultation with the administrative Ministry concerned in accordance with the procedure laid down in the Manual of Parliamentary Procedures, ordinarily within thirty days from the date of receipt of the proposal and after clearance from the Department of Legal Affairs. During a meeting of Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee the then Secretary, Legislative Department pointed out that many a times proposals are sent by the administrative Ministry very late, giving little or no room to examine them from legal and drafting angle. On every such occasion the administrative Departments are suitably advised verbally by the Legislative Department not to submit the proposal at the last moment, since such action compromises the quality of legislative drafting.

This information was given by the Union Minister of Law and Justice, Shri Kiren Rijiju in a written reply in Lok Sabha today.

Ministry of Law and Justice dated 01st April 2022

Financial Package To Women Entrepreneurs

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The Government has taken several initiatives to support and protect the interest of women and other entrepreneurs through stimulus given under Aatma Nirbhar Bharat Packages to combat the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in India. The packages comprise of schemes for various sectors of the economy and also schemes having impact across sectors. The specific initiatives taken to protect women entrepreneurs and MSMEs are as under:

  1. Rs. 3 lakh crore Emergency Working Capital Facility for Businesses, including MSMEs
  2. Rs. 20,000 crore Subordinate Debt for Stressed MSMEs
  3. Rs. 50,000 crore equity infusion through MSME Fund of Funds
  4. New Definition of MSME and other Measures for MSME
  5. Rs. 10,000 crore scheme for formalisation of Micro Food Enterprises (MFE)
  6. Relief of Rs. 1500 crore to MUDRA loanees
  7. Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) for MSMEs, businesses, MUDRA borrowers and individuals
  8. Rs. 5000 crore Credit facility for Street Vendors.
  9. Under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package, a total of 20.40 crores (approx) women account holders (Pradhan Mantri jan Dhan Yojana) were given an ex-gratia of Rs. 500 per month for three months.
  10. For Self-Help groups (SHGs), limit of collateral free lending was increased from Rs.10 lakhs to Rs. 20 lakhs for women organized through 63 lakhs SHGs, who supported 6.85 crore households.

Under the ECLGS Scheme as on 28.02.2022, 81.18 lakhs women beneficiaries have been provided guarantees for loan. The State-wise details are at Annexure.

This information was given by the Union Minister of Women and Child Development, Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani, in a written reply in Lok Sabha today.

Ministry of Women and Child Development Press Release dated 01 April 2022

Annexure

Financial Package To Women Entrepreneurs

https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=1812411&RegID=3&LID=1

MCA (Ease of Doing Business) : Steps undertaken to ensure the quick registration of companies in India (Press release 30 March 2022)

Posted on by Business So Simple in Company Law, Entrepreneurship

The Government of India has undertaken a number of steps to ensure the quick registration of companies in India, which are as under:

1. A single integrated new web form called SPICe+ along with AGILE PRO-S has been deployed. This form provides eleven services related to ‘starting a           business’         namely (i) Name Reservation, (ii) Incorporation, (iii) Permanent            Account Number        (PAN), (iv) Tax Deduction Account Number (TAN), (v) Director    Identification Number (DIN), (vi) Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation             (EPFO)            Registration, (vii) Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) Registration, (viii)             Goods and Services Tax (GST) number, (ix) Bank Account             Number, (x)    Profession Tax Registration (Mumbai, Kolkata and Karnataka), (xi)             Delhi   Shops and Establishment Registration.

2. Zero fee is now charged for incorporation of all companies with authorized           capital up to Rs. 15 lakh or with up to 20 members where no share capital is      applicable.

3. A Central Registration Centre (CRC) has been set up for name reservation and      incorporation of companies & Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) within 1 day.

4. The LLP Incorporation Form called FiLLiP has also been integrated with Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) to provide PAN/TAN at the time of Incorporation   of         LLP itself.

5.  The Companies (Incorporation) Third Amendment Rules, 2020, now provide for   extension of reservation of name through a simple web service available at         http://www.mca.gov.in.


6. Provisions with regard to incorporation and functioning of One-Person      Companies      (OPCs) have been revised so as to incentivize incorporation of OPCs. Now,        Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) are also allowed to incorporate OPCs. OPCs are        now allowed to convert into private or public companies at any point of time. The       restrictions with regard to maximum amount of paid-up       capital and turnover for             OPCs have also been removed.

This information was given by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Shri Som Parkash, in a written reply in the Lok Sabha today.

Steps taken to promote upskilling or reskilling & capacity building in the field of Artificial Intelligence (Press release 30 March 2022)

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Government of India has taken several steps to promote upskilling or reskilling in the field of Artificial Intelligence which include the following: –

  1. Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) has initiated a programme titled FutureSkills PRIME (www.futureskillsprime.in) in collaboration with NASSCOM, a B2C framework for re-skilling/ up-skilling of IT professionals in 10 Emerging are as including Artificial Intelligence. So far, 7 Lakh candidates have signed-up on the FutureSkills PRIME Portal, out of which, 1.2 lakh candidates have completed their courses. In addition, 524 Trainers and 4292 Government Officials have been trained on these technologies by NIELIT/C-DAC Resource Centres, and around 1.3 lakh unique learners have collectively earned 8.9 lakh ‘badges’ in recognition of having completed bite- sized digital fluency content.Under Artificial Intelligence, 36,528 candidates are enrolled in deep– skilling courses and 47,744 candidates are enrolled in Foundation courses.
  2. Government has published the National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence in June 2018 and proposes to develop an ecosystem for the research and adoption of Artificial Intelligence i.e. #AIFOR ALL.
  3. Government has launched ‘National AI Portal’ (https://indiaai.gov.in/) which is a repository of Artificial Intelligence (AI) based initiatives in the country at a single place. As on date, there are 1024 national and international articles, 655 news, 200 videos, 90 research reports, 279 Startups, 120 Government initiatives listed at National AI Portal.

In addition, various steps have been taken to promote capacity building in Artificial Intelligence which include the following:

  1. Government has initiated ‘Visvesvaraya PhD Scheme’ with an objective to enhance the number of PhDs in Electronics System Design & Manufacturing (ESDM) and IT/IT Enabled Services (IT/ITES) sectors in the country. The research areas under the scheme include Artificial Intelligence (covering 82 PhD fellows) and Machine Learning (covering 59 PhD fellows).
  2. National Programme on Responsible Use of AI for Youth: With the objective to empower the youth to become AI ready and help reduce the skill gap, government along with Industry partner has started this initiative to promote AI awareness among Government school going children. In Phase I, 50,666 students and 2536 teachers from 2252 schools from 35 States and UTs attended orientation sessions on AI. In Phase II, 100 teams have been short listed and have undergone extensive mentoring by AI experts. In Phase-III, Top 20 students have demonstrated their solutions in the national conference.
  3. To foster innovation through research, government has created several ‘Centres of Excellence’ on various Emerging Technologies including Artificial Intelligence. These centres connect various entities such as startups, enterprises, venture capitalists, government and academia to look into problem statements and develop innovative solutions.
  4. Department of Science & Technology is implementing the National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NM-ICPS) to promote R&D, Human Resource Development (HRD), Technology Development, Entrepreneurship Development, International Collaboration etc. As part of the Mission implementation, 25 Technology Innovation Hubs (this) have been established in reputed institutes across the country in advanced technologies including Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.
  5. Government of India has also joined the league of leading economies including USA, UK, EU, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, Singapore as a founding member of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI), which is an international and multi-stakeholder initiative to guide the responsible development and use of AI, grounded in human rights, inclusion, diversity, innovation, and economic growth.
  6. Government of India organized Responsible AI for Social Empowerment (RAISE) in 2020, a first-of-its-kind global meeting of minds on Artificial Intelligence to drive India’s vision and roadmap for social transformation, inclusion and empowerment through responsible AI. It was attended by 79,000+ stakeholders from academia, research, industry and government representatives from 147 participating countries.320 distinguished speakers from 21 countries participated in the event.

The initiatives mentioned above are focusing on digital enablement of citizensin the field of Artificial Intelligence including those belonging to the Tier 2 & Tier 3 cities. Further, the FutureSkills PRIME programmefollows an ‘aggregator of aggregators’ approach for digital skills training on a national scale and is hosted as an online B2Ce-commerce platform, thereby also enabling citizens in Tier 2 & Tier 3 cities to participate in the programme. To further strengthen the physical and digital connectivity, 40 C-DAC/NIELIT Centres spread across the country are also institutionalizing blended-learning programmes, in a hub and spoke mode, as Lead & Co-Lead Resource Centres.

Further, the FutureSkills PRIME programme targets to re-skill/ up-skill aspirants in emerging technologies so that they stay relevant in their present job with improved prospects, besides finding new avenues in future job-roles.The programme also targets those whose may have lost their existing jobs due to disruptive and emerging technologies. Towards this, the programme takes into account employment linkages, such as a ‘Career Prime’ web-page on the platform and an integrated ‘Career Portal’,which provides information on IT-ITeS jobs, internships, apprenticeships, hackathons etc.

Under FutureSkills PRIME, incentives are available to the trainees, including those from economically weaker backgrounds, after the learner is successfully assessed and certified. The incentive mechanism is aimed at motivating the learner to successfully complete the online up- skilling/re-skilling programs.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Electronics & Information Technology, Shri Rajeev Chandrasekhar in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.

 

1060 hallmarking centres are operational in the country: Bureau of Indian Standards (Press release 25 March 2022)

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The Union Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Shri Ashwini Kumar Choubey in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today informed that hallmarking has been made mandatory from 23 June, 2021 for 14, 18, & 22 carat of gold jewellery / artefacts in 256 districts of the country where there is at least one Assaying and Hallmarking Centre (AHC).

As on 20 March, 2022, 1060 hallmarking centres are functional in the country.

            The Hallmark Unique Identification (HUID)-based system of hallmarking has been introduced as it was felt necessary that with hallmarking becoming mandatory, the credibility of the hallmark put on every piece of jewellery had to be ensured along with a robust system of real-time monitoring of the entire process. Under HUID, a unique six-digit alphanumeric code is put on each gold jewellery / artifacts item along with Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) logo and purity grade mark.

BIS has developed the provision to verify HUID through the BIS CARE App- the official mobile application of BIS. The “Verify HUID” feature can be utilized to verify the purity of the gold jewellery items bearing a HUID number before purchase. Thus, the consumers can be assured of the authenticity of the HUID marked gold jewellery / artifacts items using the BIS Care Mobile App.

Also, regular audit of assaying and hallmarking centres and market surveillance of BIS registered jewellers is undertaken to ensure that they comply to the requirement of BIS hallmarking scheme. Testing of random market samples drawn from registered jewellers is carried out to ensure the purity of hallmarked gold jewellery / artifacts is as per the marked purity on the article. In case of failure, action is taken both against the AHC who has hallmarked the article and the jeweler who has got the article hallmarked.

Government e-Market portal touches an annual procurement of INR 1 Lakh crore within FY 2021-22

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Government e-Market portal touches an annual procurement of INR 1 Lakh crore within FY 2021-22


The number of orders surpasses 31.5 Lakh in the current financial year with a growth rate of 22%

In a short span of 5 years, GeM becomes one of the largest government e-procurement platforms in the world

GeM endeavours to make government procurement more inclusive by promoting women entrepreneurs and MSMEs

States continue to be an important stakeholder with 30% contribution to Gross Merchandise Value (GMV)

The portal successfully transforms public procurement in India by driving inclusion, usability, transparency, efficiency and cost saving

Government e Marketplace (GeM) has attained an annual procurement of INR 1 Lakh crore within FY 2021-22. This represents a 160% growth compared to last FY. Addressing media on the occasion, Shri Prashant Kumar Singh, CEO, GeM said that since inception the cumulative Gross Merchandize Value (GMV) reached INR 1 Lakh crore over 4 and half years, on 23rd March 2021, whereas the GMV of GeM in the current Financial Year surpassed Rs. 1 lakh crore (Ts. 1 trillion) in less than a year. This represents a 160% growth compared to last FY. Earlier in the day, the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi had tweeted about this accomplishment.

Shri Singh added that the portal had transformed public procurement in India by driving its three pillars viz. inclusion, usability and transparency and efficiency and cost saving. The number of orders has also surpassed 31.5 Lakh in the current financial year with a growth at the rate of 22%. In a short span of 5 years, GeM has become one of the biggest government e-procurement platforms in the world.

Referring to the share of Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs), Shri Singh said that approximately Rs. 43,000 Crore worth procurement was done by CPSEs (~43% of total GMV) on GeM, showing an approximate growth of 508% as compared to last FY. He also asserted that States continued to be an important stakeholder with approx. 30% contribution to total GMV.

Highlighting the role played by GeM in ushering in inclusion in government procurement, Shri Singh said that GeM has taken a host of steps to onboard products of Self-Help Groups (SHGs), tribal communities, craftsmen, weavers, and MSMEs. 57% of the total business on GeM has come through the MSME units and over 6% has been contributed by female entrepreneurs. It may be noted that the number of women sellers and entrepreneurs on GeM has grown 6 times in a year. 

It may be noted that procurement from MSEs is at 57% of the total GMV currently with a growth of 143% compared to last FY. There is a 15% increase in Buyer onboarding compared to last FY and there is a 187% increase in Seller onboarding compared to last FY. There is also a 44% increase in the number of Services compared to last FY with a 25% contribution in the total GMV (Rs. 25,000 Crore)

GeM is an online platform for public procurement in India which was envisaged by the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi ji. The initiative was launched on August 9, 2016 by Ministry of Commerce and Industry, GoI, with an objective to create an open and transparent procurement platform for government buyers. Created in a record time of 5 months, GeM facilitates online procurement of common use Goods and Services.

According to an independent assessment made by the World Bank, average savings for buyers in Government e Marketplace portal is about 9.75% on the median price. Since inception GeM has shown impressive growth year on year with better prices, thus helping the state exchequer save substantial money. In an analysis in the Economic Survey 2021-22, cost comparison of various commodities on GeM with those of popular online platforms such as Amazon and Flipkart showed that GeM prices were 9.5% lower. 10 out of 22 commodities in the sample were cheaper on the GeM portal as compared to other platforms.

New features and initiatives launched in GeM Covid 19 Oxygen drive was carried out during the Covid crisis to onboard suppliers of compressed medical oxygen gas cylinders on GeM. Total 250 Covid-19 medical categories are available on GeM; over 4.73 Lakh orders were placed through the same since March 2020.

GeM is integrating with Panchayati Raj Institutions to allow online buying and selling by the Panchayats at the grassroot level. The pilot in Gurgaon district panchayats has been successfully completed. Gem is in an advanced stage of integration with IndiaPost for extending logistics services at the grassroot level.

GeM SAHAY is an initiative to facilitate small sellers to avail credit financing from various integrated Lenders for the Orders received on GeM Portal.The Forward auction module has been launched facilitating government Auctioneers to auction assets using multiple auction modes and monitor the complete selling life cycle of their assets.

GeM platform supports advanced analytics framework to identify anomalous behaviour and transactions, market intelligence, demand/price forecasting and procurement planning/monitoring. GeM now has integration with 24 CPSEs ERP systems for post order information exchange. In total over 3 Lakh orders worth Rs. 42,000 Crore were exchanged via the integration.

GeM has Implemented Natural Language Processing based search to understand the users’ intent thereby allowing the display of relevant and more accurate search results when they search for products or services on GeM.

GeM has enabled the Buyback mechanism through which the buyer will be able to float a bid to replace old products with new ones and get some additional discount/buyback on the old products. GeM has enabled schedule wise evaluation for BoQ bids. The Buyers can now publish and evaluate item-wise, group-wise, consignee-wise for the BoQ Bids.

To ensure that business growth is supported by the platform with reliability and performance, GeM has implemented various improvements like efficient caching, optimizing active storages, improving technology currency across the layers of programming languages to databases and implemented enhanced security measures. The Platform is supporting ~13,500 concurrent users with some DB loads reaching ~35K QPS (Queries per Second).

GeM has also engaged external security consultants for exhaustive audits and has implemented ~75 additional security directives. It is also going through an STQC certification audit planned to complete by March 2022.While load on the platform increased by 70%, the page response time has seen an improvement of 40%. On an average, the number of bids per day has also increased from 1,100 in April 2021 to 2,800 in March 2022. Corresponding seller participation per day has also increased to 15,000 from 10,000 in the same period.

GeM was adjudged as the winner in the “Best Use of Digital Technology” category at the CIPS Excellence in Procurement Awards 2021 held at London. GeM emerged the winner in this category after competing with some of the biggest and best names in procurement across the public and private sector globally, including GEP, Jaguar Land Rover, Royal Dutch Shell, VenDigital and Shell.

GeM was also shortlisted as a finalist in two additional categories as well, i.e. ‘Public Procurement Project of the Year’ and ‘Best Initiative to Build a Diverse Supply Base’ where it was in the august company of some path-breaking organizations with great initiatives.

Press Release 24th March 2022

Steps by Government to promote Renewable Energy (Press release 22 March 2022)

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The Government has taken several steps to promote renewable energy, including wind energy, in the country. These include:

  • permitting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) up to 100 percent under the automatic route,
  • waiver of Inter State Transmission System (ISTS) charges for inter-state sale of solar and wind power for projects to be commissioned by 30th June 2025,
  • declaration of trajectory for Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO) up to the year 2022,
  • setting up of Ultra Mega Renewable Energy Parks to provide land and transmission to RE developers on a plug and play basis,
  • laying of new transmission lines and creating new sub-station capacity for evacuation of renewable power,
  • setting up of Project Development Cell for attracting and facilitating investments,
  • Standard Bidding Guidelines for tariff based competitive bidding process for procurement of Power from Grid Connected Solar PV and Wind Projects.
  • Government has issued orders that power shall be dispatched against Letter of Credit (LC) or advance payment to ensure timely payment by distribution licensees to RE generators.
  • Conducting skill development programmes to create a pool of skilled manpower for implementation, operation and maintenance of RE projects.

In addition to the above, the following steps have been taken specifically for promoting wind energy:

  • Concessional custom duty exemption on certain components required for manufacturing of wind electric generators.
  • Generation Based Incentive (GBI) is being provided to the wind projects commissioned on or before 31 March 2017.
  • Technical support including wind resource assessment and identification of potential sites through the National Institute of Wind Energy, Chennai.

This information was given by Shri R.K Singh, Union Minister for Power and New and Renewable Energy in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.

DATA OF REGISTERED Farmer Producer Organizations(FPOs) (Press release 15th March 2022)

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The State wise details of Farmer Producer Organizations(FPOs) registered through various agencies including those under the Central Sector Scheme(CSS) for Formation and Promotion of 10,000 FPOs are at Annexure – I. Further under the new FPO scheme, 421 FPOs have been registered by different Implementing Agencies(IAs) in Aspirational Districts as on 09.03.2022. The details are at Annexure-II.

Under the said Central Sector Scheme (CSS), an amount of Rs. 14.05 Crores has been transferred to 352 FPOs towards matching equity grant. The state-wise details are enclosed at Annexure – III. Furthermore, the FPO Management Cost is also disbursed by the Department to the concerned Implementing Agencies for onward transferring to the respective FPOs. So far, a total of Rs. 108.82 Crores has been released as FPO Management Cost under 10,000 FPOs scheme.

As per operational guidelines of the aforesaid Central Sector Schemes (CSS), women farmers’ participation as shareholders of FPOs is preferred and in the Board of Directors (BoD) and Governing Body (GB), as the case may be, there shall be adequate representation of women farmer member(s) and there should be minimum one woman member.

So far, 225 women FPOs have been promoted by different Implementing Agencies as on 09.03.2022.

Refer list

DATA OF REGISTERED FPOs

https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=1806232&RegID=3&LID=1

Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) (Press release 14th March 2022)

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The Global Pandemic is once in a life-time disruption that has created serious adverse impacts on lives and livelihood in economies all around the world. Almost every major economy in the world was impacted and each country including India had to bear the cost of economic contractions, livelihood loss and increased healthcare expenditure. However, India has responded with great resilience and has emerged as one of the fastest rebounding economies in the World. As per the Economic Survey 2021-22, Covid-19 pandemic has had an adverse impact on most sectors of the economy. Government of India responded with a series of calibrated measures aimed at protecting the lives and livelihoods of most vulnerable and small businesses like the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) segment. India has become third largest start-up ecosystem in the world after US and China with over 60,000 start-ups. India created 42 Unicorn in the year 2021 alone.

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) is an international project which seeks to provide information on the entrepreneurial landscape of countries. GEM carries out survey-based research on entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship ecosystems around the world and is being led by Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, Ahmedabad.

As per Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) India Report (21-22), India’s entrepreneurial activity expanded in 2021, with its Total Entrepreneurial Activity rate(percentage of adults (aged 18–64) who are starting or running a new business) increased to 14.4% in 2021, up from 5.3% in 2020.

Further, Established Business Ownership rate (percentage of adults (aged 18–64) who are currently the owner-manager of an established business, i.e. owning and managing a business that has paid salaries, wages or any other payments to the owners, for more than 42 months)increased to 8.5%, from 5.9% in 2020. Boom in early-stage entrepreneurial activity for India in 2021 may be due to the pent-up demand and subsequent opportunities generated by the reduction in COVID-19 risk that damaged the Indian economy in 2020.

Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) is implementing various programmes to encourage entrepreneurship in the country as mentioned below:-

  1. Pilot project, ‘Economic Empowerment of Women Entrepreneurs and Startups by Women (WEE)’ is being implemented in collaboration with Deutsche Gesellschaftfür Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) Germany to pilot incubation and acceleration programmes for women micro entrepreneurs, enabling them to start new businesses and scale up existing enterprises in Maharashtra and other States, viz.Rajasthan, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and North Eastern region of the country.
  2. Pilot Project on Entrepreneurship Development (PM YUVA) has been launched in November, 2019 for creating an enabling ecosystem through entrepreneurship education, training, advocacy and easy access to entrepreneurship network, for students and alumni of skill training institutes viz. Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs), Polytechnics, Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Kendra (PMKK) and Jan Shikshan Sansthan (JSS). The scheme covers 10 States including Maharashtra and 2 Union Territories.
  3. Entrepreneurship Promotion and Mentoring of Micro and Small Businesses in Six Holy Cities: The project seeks to catalyse local entrepreneurial activities through involvement of potential and existing entrepreneurs, through entrepreneurship awareness, education and mentoring in Pandharpur, Puri, Varanasi, Haridwar, Kollur and Bodh Gaya.
  4. Apart from above, in order to enhance the employability of female workers, the Government is providing training to them through a network of Women Industrial Training Institutes, National Skill Training Institutes, PMKVY Centers and Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Kendras.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Shri Rajeev Chandrasekhar in a written reply in the Lok Sabha today.