Upgradation of technology for the growth and development of MSES

Abstract

Micro and Small enterprise (MSEs) sector is a vital part of Indian economy. It contributes significantly to the economy in terms of value addition, employment and export earnings. The sector shares about 7% of the GDP and is the largest employment provider after agriculture. The performance of the sector, as a whole, has shown improvement in the post liberalization period. The opportunities offered by globalization led the sector to acquire a lot of resilience gaining competitive strengthen many of the areas. However, the growth of the MSE sector has been limited to a few sub-sectors. As a whole, the SME sector suffers from a number of malaises like high percentage of sickness and closure, losing competitiveness, technological obsolescence, etc. The MSE sector is required to build up competitive strength for both survival and growth. Enhancing competitiveness through improvement of productivity and quality of products has become very urgent and for which technology has been identified as the key factor. The majority of the MSEs which form the non-transitional MSEs is dependent on traditional technology and skills. The development of technology for this group is seen not as much relevance as it is for the transitional MSEs. The transitional MSE swhich include hi-tech industries, exporting units and modern units are technologically more sensitive and carry out R and D activities. Nevertheless, technology is important for the MSE sector as whole for improving productivity and quality. The development of technology is facilitated by good technology system including institutional finance and technology intermediation. But what is more important for MSEs is the positive role of the Government in providing necessary support and incentives for technology up-gradation and encouraging R and D activities