Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises of India

So first, uh, I think the first issue is, uh, not, uh, the legislation or not the act and the laws or even, uh, I would say the incentives by the government.

A lot of incentives are there by the government for startups and M- M- MSMEs in India and for women entrepreneurs also.

So, uh, the issue is with IPR awareness.

Mm.

Because, uh, there are a lot of startups emerging in India, especially like in the first, uh, decade.

But they are not aware about, uh, the IP rights.

And in fact, uh, it's a good medium to inform people also that government also, uh, has a lot of incentives when it comes to IP registration by startups and MSMEs, which they themselves are not aware.

Hmm.

Earlier, this information went through a US-based organization first, which Indian officials said caused delays in investigations.

Four, more than one hundred stainless steel MSMEs have asked the government to restore quality control rules after imports jumped following their suspension.

Stainless steel imports reached one hundred and one thousand two hundred and fifty-two tons in April, up sixty-five percent year on year, with industry groups arguing that cheaper Chinese imports are hurting domestic manufacturers.

Five, from October 15th, merchants will pay a point four percent fee on UPI transactions above rupees two thousand, ending more than six years of zero fee payments.

Okay.

Register yourself with MSME or them, you know, do a registration, do a DPID registration if you are a proper startup.

Okay.

Once that is done, have a clear idea on, you know, what you're going to sell.

Benefits of systematic investment.

While we keep talking about SIPs, but it is still a very small percentage of India's population does that kind of investment, right? Benefits of financial planning, asset allocation, MSMEs and other small businesses.

Importance of keeping proper books, routing all transactions through bank, proper stock statement, receivable statements.

They end up not showing the right picture to the bank and harming themselves in the process.

And the reverse of it is also true.

In COVID, a lot of MSMEs were actually having a very decent quarter when the national growth rate was minus 28, minus 29%.

Why? Because their stuck payments were coming through in some cases.

In some cases, their orders which were piled up or the stock which was piled up was released in a quick fashion because the retailers were stocking up for whatever reason.

But Mumbai and Delhi are not IT hubs.

So are you telling me in the future when we become a $10 trillion economy, Delhi and Mumbai will actually be the center of $2 trillion zones? They're not IT hubs.

There are MSMEs.

There are an array of industries.

Nine of the new suppliers contributed just 1.4% of total imports, while returning supplier Venezuela accounted for nearly 5%.

Five, the Solar Energy Corporation of India is working on a framework to aggregate green power demand from MSMEs and industrial heating users.

By pooling demand from smaller buyers, the scheme aims to make renewable electricity more affordable and easier to procure for industries looking to reduce their use of fossil fuels.

That's all the news I have for you.

The apprenticeship system, which Mr. Shungroo talked about, which was introduced by finance minister, well, it has its early years, but it has not been fully utilized.

In fact, in the case of MSMEs, the utilization has been dramatically low.

Perhaps in the case of larger corporates, utilization percentage has been better but what can be done to build exactly apprenticeships not much later you cannot drift along in college and then decide i'm sure which mr shoglu will agree that you need to consider some of this by the time a kid has reached 11th and 12th there is some avenues which open up where he would seek apprenticeship so a robust a much more meaningful and robust partnership between evolving skills which corporates need getting MSMEs incentivized in the process with changing pedagogy using artificial intelligence in a creative way and I will make one comment on artificial intelligence and this partnership between the three industry government to enhance this schools and schools using technology meaningfully on technology only one comment to make I don't know what Vijay feels about this I don't know what you feel about this but I deeply worried of the two words which were used in describing the use of artificial intelligence Does it and will it amount to cognitive surrender? With children who are supposed to think creatively, stop thinking creatively, the mind will not be able to do simple arithmetic in their mind and they will have an answer from the AI.

So how does one keep this cognitive ability of children, of young minds, insulated and protected on what artificial intelligence has to offer.

So how to harness artificial intelligence in a manner which is a force multiplier in terms of doing away with many mechanical things and yet retaining the ability to think innovatively and that at no point in time will we have a cognitive surrender.

But there's been a bit of a cyclical upturn, which is probably being supported by the fact that the consumption story in India also has picked pace, partly because of GST cuts and partly because of other factors, and that has been supported by the private CapEx cycle.

If you look at the credit offtake to MSME sector in the investment side, that also has been picking up, which sort of gives the sense that maybe the broad headlines are not capturing, uh, the CapEx cycle.

You know, you're not talking about the likes of L&T doing big projects to the extent that there's a lot of noise in the CapEx story, but there are a lot of mini CapEx stories that are playing out, partly led by the MSME segment.

Now, the only concern for me is that these segments are relatively less immune to global vagaries, unlike the big guys.

The big guys obviously are also doing their bit, but, uh, the smaller players need to be more convinced to be able to continue whether it is cyclical upturn or a cyclical investment that they have, uh, you know, put in more.