In order to provide a simpler and faster mechanism to address the stress in the accounts of MSMEs and to facilitate the promotion and development of MSMEs, the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, in exercise of the powers conferred in section 9 of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Act, 2006, had issued a Gazette Notification dated May 29, 2015 for ‘Framework for Revival and Rehabilitation of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises’.

Further, in order to make it compatible with existing regulatory guidelines on Income Recognition, Asset Classification and provisioning pertaining to Advances, Reserve Bank of India in consultation with Ministry of MSME has also issued circular “Framework for Revival and Rehabilitation of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises” vide circular dated March 17, 2016 to all the scheduled commercial banks excluding Regional Rural Banks (RRBs).

The provision made under this framework shall be applicable to MSMEs having loan limits up to ₹ 25 crore, including accounts under consortium or multiple banking arrangements (MBA). The guidelines provided for identification incipient stress in the account creating three sub categories under the Special Mention Account (SMP) category. On the basis of early warning signals, based on principal or interest payment overdue, the branch maintaining the account should consider forwarding the stressed accounts with aggregate loan limits above ₹ 10 lakh to a Committee at regional or zonal level within five working days and accounts with aggregate loan limits up to ₹ 10 lakh identified as SMA-2, the account should be mandatorily examined by the branch itself under the authority of the branch manager/such other official as decided by the bank in terms of their Board approved policy for corrective action plan(CAP).

As per the guidelines, banks with the approval of their boards, should frame policy based on these instructions, on the composition of the committee, the terms of appointment of its members, manner of filling vacancies and the procedure to be followed in the discharge of the committee’s functions. All eligible stressed MSMEs shall have access to the committee for resolving the stress in these accounts in accordance with the regulations prescribed in this framework.

The RBI has asked the banks that the Board approved policy to operationalise the Framework may be put in place by the banks not later than June 30, 2016.

Ministry of MSME has a number of schemes to provide credit support to MSMEs including Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises, Performance & Credit Rating Scheme, Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme and Credit Linked Capital Subsidy Scheme.

To enable ease of registration of MSMEs, this Ministry has notified a simple one-page registration form ‘Udyog Aadhaar Memorandum’ on 18th September, 2015 in the Gazette of India vide notification No. S.O.2576 (E). The Udyog Aadhaar Memorandum provides hassle-free instant registration of MSMEs after filing a one page online form. The salient features of the Udyog Aadhaar Memorandum include Mobile Friendly, Self-Certification, File more than one Udyog Aadhaar, No documents required, No fees for Udyog Aadhaar. As on 26th April 2016, about 619501 units were registered under Udyog Aadhaar Memorandum.

This information was given by the Minister of State, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Shri Giriraj Singh in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha here today.

MSME revival framework mandates early warning classification and committee review to promptly resolve stressed accounts. The Framework for Revival and Rehabilitation of MSMEs establishes early-warning identification via a three-tier Special Mention Account classification, mandates branch-level corrective action plans for smaller stressed accounts and referral of larger stressed accounts to a regional/zonal committee, and requires banks to adopt board-approved policies governing committee composition and procedures to operationalise the framework.