Mumbai, September 30: With an aim to boost the income of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in the country amid an economic slowdown, the Narendra Modi government is mulling plans to strengthen collaboration between Indian and foreign MSMEs with the help of a networking portal. Under this new module, the MSME Ministry is planning a new networking portal which would enable the businesses to connect with each other and forge partnerships.

Informing more about the new scheme, MSME Ministry Secretary Arun Kumar Panda had said, as reported by Financial Express, "We will be coming up with a digital portal this year itself where MSMEs can meet, collaborate, and contribute to each other’s innovation and growth." He said that the Ministry has a database of 75 lakh (7.5 million) registered MSMEs. Narendra Modi Govt May Cut Stake in Indian Oil, NTPC and GAIL to Below 51%, Aims at Raising Rs 5,000 Crore Through PSUs Disinvestment.

Explaining the benefit of the new networking portal, Panda said, "Indian SMEs have to compete among themselves and large corporate in India and also SMEs and large corporate in the world. Hence, there are two important things to boost their manufacturing competitiveness: innovation and collaboration."

It is to be known that India built around 18 tool rooms and technology centres in India for MSMEs between 1969 and 1999. The Union government is further planning to build 145 new such centres in the next four to five years. Around 15 centres have reached different stages of completion, while 120 more technology centres -- including 20 large and 100 small for MSMEs -- would be built in the course of time. These new centres will teach new techniques to adopt artificial intelligence, blockchain, augmented reality, virtual reality etc. for competitive markets, sustained efficiency and enhanced productivity.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 30, 2019 06:18 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).