With the country that is still trying to emerge from the health and economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the MSME sector, which forms the backbone of the economy, faced challenges during the period of the pandemic in terms of growth and survival.
Pandemic has further aggravated these challenges and made it difficult for many small and medium enterprises to survive in the industry and maintain their generated revenue.
The entire sector expected a lot from the government in the Union Budget to bring their business back on track and gain back the momentum that they lost during the lockdown.
They had high hopes from Budget 2021 to give them relief and support financially too.
We are welcoming the decision of our honourable finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman who increased the number of investments and allocated Rs 15,700 crore to the MSME sector, besides laying a special framework of Data Analytics, Machine Learning (ML), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to assist the entire MSME ecosystem and develop them digitally.
Still, there are some areas such as Tax regime, Digitalisation, cash flow, easing financing norms for MSMEs, where the stakeholders are hopeful for more positive outcomes from the government.
(The author is Co-Founder and Director at Busy Infotech Pvt. Ltd)
Published 01 February 2021, 12:05 IST