Maharashtra flagship scheme for MSMEs to generate 10 lakh jobs

Maharashtra government will soon launch the Chief Minister's Employment Generation Programme for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), which will create 10 lakh jobs in the next five years, a senior official said here Tuesday.

The flagship programme of the Industries Department will have 30 per cent reservation for women entrepreneurs, state Development Commissioner (Industries) Dr Harshadeep Kamble told PTI. The senior IAS officer said the scheme, approved by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, envisages setting up one lakh units in five years, 40 per cent of them in rural areas.

Kamble said this year's target is setting up of 10,000 micro-ventures to be set up by first-generation entrepreneurs. The scheme will be implemented on the lines of the Prime Minister's Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP) with online applications and other procedures, the bureaucrat said.

This scheme is for promoting entrepreneurship and to address unemployment issues among educated unemployed youth, Kamble said. It will provide easy financial assistance as a viability gap funding for approved project cost of up to Rs 50 lakh for manufacturing activities and up to Rs 10 lakh for service sector activities, he added.

The programme will cover manufacturing, service and agro-based activities, including those in retail, said Kamble, who was responsible for the concept, design and approvals of the scheme from preparation to implementation stages.

The nodal bank for the programme will be Corporation Bank and beneficiaries will be financed by nationalised and private Sector banks like Yes Bank, ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank, he said. To supplement this programme, 50 new industrial parks will be developed at taluka level by the government, Kamble said. Considering the high demand for jobs, this programme for MSMEs is expected to be a "game changer" in the coming days, another official said.

-PTI