Now Reading: Parliamentary panel renews push for ‘nano’ business category
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Parliamentary panel renews push for ‘nano’ business category
A Rajya Sabha Standing Committee on Industry has renewed its push for a separate 'nano' category for India's smallest businesses, rejecting the MSME ministry's concerns that such a classification would complicate administration…
A Rajya Sabha Standing Committee on Industry has renewed its push for a separate 'nano' category for India's smallest businesses, rejecting the MSME ministry's concerns that such a classification would complicate administration and policy. The committee, chaired by lawmaker Tiruchi Siva, has directed the ministry to form a group involving SIDBI, RBI, state governments and experts on informal enterprises to work on the new nano-business classification.
The committee says the existing micro category, covering 99.3% of India's 92 million MSMEs with turnover below ₹10 crore, is too broad to distinguish between subsistence-level household businesses and larger micro enterprises. It pointed to Kerala's 2021 policy, which defines a nano unit as one with fixed capital investment of ₹10 lakh or less and offers targeted schemes like interest subvention and margin money assistance.
The MSME ministry had told the panel that a new category would require legal and administrative overhauls, and that nano businesses fluctuate frequently in scale, making classification complex. The committee responded that the ministry was 'taking refuge in administrative inconvenience' and has asked it to proceed with forming the working group.
Indian Opinion Analysis
The debate over a nano category reflects a deeper tension between standardised national policy and ground-level reality. India's 92 million MSMEs span everything from a roadside cobbler to a factory with 50 workers, yet all share the same 'micro' label. Kerala's 2021 experiment, interest subvention, margin money, and household enterprise promotion for units with investment up to ₹10 lakh, offers a live test case. The real prize is credit access: tiny firms are routinely denied bank loans because they lack audited accounts or formal turnover data. A nano tag could unlock targeted lending, but the ministry fears it will create a new layer of bureaucracy. The working group's report, due likely within six months, will decide whether India follows Kerala or sticks with the current broad-brush approach.
Source: livemint.com
This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
