Economic Survey: Availing credit is a major problem for Indian MSMEs

India’s micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) faces a major problem in terms of getting adequate credit for expansion of business activities, the Economic Survey on Monday said.
The survey tabled in Parliament by finance minister Arun Jaitley pointed out that the MSME received only 17.4 per cent of the total credit outstanding.
“Growth of credit to micro and small enterprises increased by 4.6 per cent, while credit to medium enterprises decreased by 8.3 per cent,” it said.
Elaborating on the status of the major schemes implemented for the MSME sector, the survey observed that loans extended under the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana during 2016-17 have crossed the target of Rs 1.8 lakh crore.
“Of this amount, Rs 1.23 lakh crore was lent by banks, while non-banking institutions lent about Rs 57,000 crore. In December 2017, total number of borrowers were 10.1 crore, out of which 7.6 crore were women,” the survey said.
It highlighted the crucial role played by MSMEs in India towards providing large scale employment opportunities at comparatively lower capital cost than large industries and also in industrialisation of rural and backward areas.