Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: Government’s new paperless portal for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to register through Aadhaar number, Udyam Registration is seeing around 12,000 registrations almost every day, said BB Swain, Secretary, MSME Ministry. “In a brief span of about 20 months, Udyam has seen almost 75 lakh registrations,” Swain said at an event organised by plastic manufacturers’ body All India Plastics Manufacturers’ Association. Udyam portal, which shows real-time registration count, has recorded 75.25 lakh registrations since its launch on July 1, 2020, after the government revised the MSME definition. 

95 per cent (71.49 lakh) of business registrations are micro-enterprises while only 4.5 per cent (3.4 lakh) are small and 0.46 per cent (35,298) are medium enterprises, data showed. “MSMEs contribute immensely to the GDP, exports and employment of our country. In the plastics sector too, MSMEs dominate this scenario. Udyam portal indicated that around 65,000 MSMEs are working in the field of plastics sector but I’m quite sure the actual number is much higher than that, maybe a few lakhs. I’m told that in 2021, India exported plastics worth Rs 40,000 crore, this figure underscored the importance of the sector,” Swain added.

Subscribe to Financial Express SME newsletter now: Your weekly dose of news, views, and updates from the world of micro, small, and medium enterprises 

Despite the second and third waves of the pandemic in the past 12 months, plastics exports had registered a significant jump. The cumulative value of plastics export during the April 2021- January 2022 period was up by 39.1 per cent to $11,108 million from $7,987 million during April 2020 – January 2021 period, according to the latest data from The Plastics Export Promotion Council showed. The council, under Commerce Ministry, represents exporting community in the plastics sector. 

“Plastics business is around Rs 3 lakh crore annually in India and in the coming five years, it is targetted to become worth Rs 10 lakh crore industry. This can be possible only through MSMEs in the sector,” said Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma, Minister of State, Ministry of MSME at the event. Verma said.

India generated over 34 lakh tons of plastic waste in 2019-20 with an average annual increase of 21.8 per cent in the last five years, according to the government. Swain said with India’s burgeoning population, the waste flow would also be increasing, and hence “this will also open up many business opportunities for plastics sector and recycling sector. The issue calls for investing more into local systems and developing local resilience.”