MSME Ministry to launch national SC/ST hub on 8th Oct

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SME Times News Bureau | 23 Sep, 2016
National SC/ST Hub under the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) will be launched soon, informed Kalraj Mishra, Union Minister for MSME on Thursday.

This will promote the SC/ST entrepreneurs. In this regard, a National High Power Committee meeting headed by Kalraj Mishra, was held in New Delhi on Thursday, to review the progress of the National SC/ST Hub.

Speaking on the occassion Mishra said that the National SC/ST Hub will be launched soon within a record time of 7 months from the announcement in the budget speech of 2016-17.

On the occasion he stated that the Narendra Modi Government was keen to inculcate the spirit of self-employment among the SC / ST population and he urged upon all the participants, especially industries associations to take it in the mission mode.

He further said that his Ministry has made an initial allotment of allocation of Rs. 490 crore for the period 2016-2020 for the National SC/ST Hub. The Hub would primarily aid in strengthening market access/linkage, monitoring, capacity building, leveraging financial support schemes and sharing industry best practices etc. The hub would operate from National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC) Headquarters in Delhi, supported by a special cell created for this purpose.

Minister of State, MSME, Giriraj Singh emphasised the need to work at the grassroot level and start work on a pilot basis with identified CPSEs in the districts having large presence of SC/ST entrepreneurs. Honâble Minister of State, MSME, Sh Haribhai P. Choudhary mentioned about working for the demand side from CPSEs and large corporate houses.

The public procurement order mandates 4 percent annual procurement by Central Ministries/ Departments and Public Sector Undertakings from SC/ST enterprises w.e.f 01.04.2015. It has been reported that at present the Government of India procurement form SC/ST enterprises in less than 1 percent due to low participation of the community. This needs to be scaled up to meet the procurement target form SC/ST.

In the past, there has been some increase in the number of SC/ST owned enterprises but this number needs to increase substantially to enable the socio-economic empowerment of SC/ST communities. In this direction, the National SC/ST Hub in an initiative of the Government of India targeted towards developing a supportive ecosystem towards SC/ST entrepreneurs.

After the announcement of creating National SC/ST Hub was made, MSME Ministry consulted the stakeholders including DICCI, Industry Association, Banks and relevant Ministries to suggest concrete steps to the proposed SC/ST Hub.