Thursday, December 11, 2014: According to the data received by the Union Ministry for MSMEs on Monday, over 48,000 units in Gujarat have been reported as to be sick. The report came forth at the time when the state government is putting all possible efforts to promote micro, small and medium enterprises in the state, by way of the seventh edition of Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors’ Summit 2015. These units account almost one fifth of total registered MSME with the state.
According to the data compiled by RBI from scheduled commercial banks, there are total of 48,000 sick MSME units in Gujarat (recorded till end of March 2014), which is second only to Uttar Pradesh with 63,268 units. This came under a written reply to the Lok Sabha about the National Manufacturing Competitiveness Programme by Kalraj Mishra.
Within last 12 months, the number of sick MSME units in Gujarat has almost doubled. A senior official of the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), which is notably one of the biggest lenders to MSMEs in Gujarat, said that the non-performing assets of MSME units have increased by 5-6 per cent as compared to the last year.
He further added, “We are facing a lot of problems with regard to providing loans to MSME units in Gujarat is concerned. Every year we have been lending more to MSME units in the state, but the quantum of NPAs (non-performing assets) among have simultaneously been on the rise.” He said, “Real-estate, manufacturing, chemicals, textiles and hospitality are some of the sectors where MSMEs have been badly affected by NPAs in Gujarat.”
Government reports reveal that there are 0.261 million registered MSME units in Gujarat with over 2.16 million people in state. Major multi-product MSME clusters in the state are Ahmedabad, Surat, Rajkot, Vadodara, Bharuch, Jamnagar, Bhavnagar and Valsad.
