Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) launched ‘Digital Saksham’ initiative with Mastercard’s Centre for Inclusive Growth and National Institute for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (ni-msme) an organization of Ministry of MSME, to empower over 3 lakhs MSMEs across India with digital know how and acceptance. The project is scheduled to be implemented in January 2021, while the MSMEs will be trained in June 2021.

The collaboration aims to educate and train micro and small business owners and entrepreneurs enabling them to integrate into the digital economy and access credit, expand their market access, diversify their customer base, digitize their financial operations, and solidify their supply chain. The goal is to unlock the full potential of MSMEs in India, measured by increased profits and financial resilience.

Speaking at the 17^th Global SME Business Summit 2020 that was organized virtually by CII, in partnership with the Ministry of MSME, GoI, Nitin Gadkari, Hon’ble Minister for MSMEs and Road Transport and Highways of India, said, “The project Digital Saksham by CII, Mastercard and ni-msme entails a scale of reaching out to more than 3 lakh MSMEs in 25 cities including rural and peri-urban clusters. This will help drive systemic transformation and further accelerate achievements towards meeting our goals and ensure financial inclusion.”

He further added, “We need to make 50% of the growth of the Indian economy come from the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector, raise its contribution to exports to 60% and create 5 crore new jobs. To realize this potential– micro and small businesses need to become increasingly competitive in a changing marketplace.”  

In similar lines, Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII, stated that the Digital Saksham initiative will focus on activating CII’s vast membership base which includes 67% of MSMEs to upskill specially the micro and small businesses. Through a combination of CII’s broad footprint with 67 offices across the country and collaboration with ni-msme, CII will target key supply chains and use a cluster approach to deliver relevant skills know-how to the last mile entrepreneur.

Agreeing to this sentiment and expressing his delight on the partnership, Ari Sarker, Co-President, Asia Pacific, Mastercard, emphasized the key role of small businesses and solutions on supporting SMEs and mentioned that the program is an extension of Mastercard’s global and India commitment to empower, enable, and enhance small entrepreneurs making them more competitive.

For more information: www.cii.in