Starting April 1, micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in India will operate under revised classification criteria, according to an official notification.
The move is expected to spur growth and job creation.
Experts believe that the updated investment and turnover thresholds will provide MSMEs with greater flexibility to expand without losing out on key government benefits, reported PTI.
The government’s latest notification enhances the investment and turnover limits for MSME classification by 2.5 times and 2 times, respectively. This adjustment is aimed at providing support to businesses that have shown steady growth by offering them more operational headroom.
“The revised and increased eligibility should enable those MSMEs who have had good growth to grow further by giving them increased headroom to continue to grow. It should be especially beneficial for new micro enterprises as they can scale up with the various fiscal incentives available, especially with regard to access to finance,” said Ashok Saigal, Co-Chairman of the CII National MSME Council. He added that these changes are likely to drive employment generation.
With the updated criteria, micro enterprises will now include businesses with investments up to Rs 2.5 crore, up from the previous threshold of Rs 1 crore. Similarly, the turnover limit for micro enterprises has doubled from Rs 5 crore to Rs 10 crore.
For small enterprises, the investment cap has been raised to Rs 25 crore from Rs 10 crore, while the turnover limit has increased from Rs 50 crore to Rs 100 crore. Medium enterprises will now be classified based on investments up to Rs 125 crore, compared to the earlier limit of Rs 50 crore, with their turnover limit doubling to Rs 500 crore.
During her budget speech on February 1, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman highlighted the importance of these changes, and said, “To help them (MSMEs) achieve higher efficiencies of scale, technological upgradation and better access to capital, the investment and turnover limits for classification of all MSMEs will be enhanced to 2.5 and 2 times, respectively. This will give them the confidence to grow and generate employment for our youth.”