Jubilee Desk
Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), the principal financial institution engaged in the promotion, financing and development of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) has participated in flagging-off event of National Micro, Small & Medium Enterprise (MSME) Expedition Team at its head office situated at Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh on its journey across 5 states (Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh & Bihar) for about 3500 Kms to make people aware about various Government Schemes devised for MSMEs. This campaign has started as part of “Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav” (AKAM) campaign of Department of Financial Services (DFS) which is organizing 50 MSME Meeting in rural areas and 25 such meetings in rural areas encouraging thousands of people towards perusing self-employment.
The National MSME Expedition team of Ministry of MSME under AKAM Campaign is on a journey by road across states to make people aware about various schemes of Central and State Government for MSMEs. The team reached Lucknow after travelling from Delhi to Faridabad, Ballabhgarh, Palwal, Agra, Firozabad, Fatehpur, Kanpur, Prayagraj, Banaras in Uttar Pradesh, Rewa in Madhya Pradesh, Buxar, Arra, Patna, Chhapra, Champaran in Bihar. It also visited Gorakhpur, Sant Kabir Nagar, Sultanpur, Kannauj in Uttar Pradesh.
Shri V. Satya Venkata Rao, Deputy Managing Director, SIDBI along with other senior officials of SIDBI attended the event at Lucknow which was flagged off by Shri Siddharth Nath Singh, Minister for MSME, Uttar Pradesh.
Addressing the participants of the expedition team, Shri Siddharth Nath Singh, Minister for MSME said, “MSME has a special place among all the economic development related departments of the government. He suggested bringing all industry related issues under the purview of MSME.”
Shri V. Satya Venkata Rao, Deputy Managing Director, SIDBI, on this occasion told the expedition team the need to spread awareness about the various schemes of Central and State Governments for the MSMEs amongst the youth of the country through such programmes. Shri Rao also addressed the participants highlighting various initiatives taken by the Government of India (GoI) and SIDBI towards upliftment of the MSME Sector during the Covid-19 pandemic across globe under the Atmanirbhar Abhiyan of the GoI.
So far, this expedition team has travelled and participated in a number of meetings and has encouraged thousands of people to become entrepreneurs and in the process generate employment opportunities.