UP injected Rs 42,000 crore in MSMEs to beat pandemic

Virendra Singh Rawat

Lucknow / Mar 1, 2021

The Uttar Pradesh government injected bank loans of about Rs 42,000 crore in the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector to overcome pandemic challenges.

According to UP additional chief secretary, MSME and export promotion, Navneet Sehgal, the government facilitated working capital loans totalling almost Rs 12,000 crore to 438,000 MSME units in the current financial year 2020-21.

Besides, loans worth Rs 30,000 crore were distributed to 864,000 startups and new MSMEs during the period. “This way, the state injected Rs 42,000 crore in the MSME sector benefitting 1.3 million units,” he said adding the industrial activities were fast returning to the pre-Covid levels.

The injection of fresh funds had created 2.8 million fresh employment opportunities, which greatly helped the state workforce in the backdrop of reverse migration of nearly 4 million workers during the early phases of lockdown last year.

In fact, over the past four years, almost 5 million MSME units in UP were linked to the credit facilities of nearly Rs 1.9 trillion, thus collectively creating jobs for 15 million youth and workers.

The Yogi Adityanath government is targetting to increase industrial exports, including MSMEs, in the next three years to hit the Rs 3 trillion mark. During 2018-19 and 2019-20 fiscal years, the sectoral exports from the state stood at Rs 1.14 trillion and Rs 1.20 trillion respectively.