The MSME sector contributes approximately 30% to India’s GDP. The emergence of new schemes by the Government of India has enormously boosted the performance of the businesses from the MSME sector. These MSME’s provide employment to approximately 60-80 million people in the country thus proving to be an engine of growth in India. The competition in the MSME sector has been steadily on the rise with the addition of companies harnessing the power of technology and availing the facilities of financial schemes from the Government and thus increasing the overall output of the products and services. The ASPIRE Scheme launched and promoted by the Ministry of MSME was in order to boost the sector.
The development of the rural economy is the prime concern for the Government of India. Accordingly, efforts were initiated to improve the economic and social well-being of people in rural areas. Despite the sincere efforts, poverty, unemployment, and migration still exist in the rural economy. It is the sheer need to address these issues by creating employment opportunities in rural areas.
The ASPIRE Scheme full form is A Scheme for Promotion of Innovation, Rural Industries and Entrepreneurship. The primary objective of the ASPIRE Scheme was to set up a network comprising of technology and incubation centres to expedite the new rush of entrepreneurship in India and to enable start-ups for innovation in the Agro based industries.
The ASPIRE scheme launched in 2015 by the Government of India with the aim of helping the entrepreneurs to setup a business and provide employment to newcomers in the MSME sector. The main aim of the scheme was to facilitate market linkage and provide assistance to the MSME’s in the rural areas when the need for it arises. Economic and social problems are still rampant in the different parts of the country. In order to solve this, it is important to come up with a base level solution like providing employment and setting up SME’s in the agricultural sector.
Objectives of the ASPIRE scheme :
The following are some of the objectives of the ASPIRE Yojana :
1.) Creating enough opportunities by providing new jobs and fostering employment.
2.) Promoting the culture of entrepreneurship on a nation-wide scale.
3.) Paying importance on the grassroots economic development at the district level.
4.) Enabling newer and innovative business solutions for not duly met social needs.
5.) Promoting the levels of competitiveness of the MSME’s sector in our country.
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ASPIRE scheme benefits & ASPIRE scheme Scope :
The ASPIRE Yojana fund has a Rs.200 Cr corpus that is to be utilized for the ASPIRE scheme benefits& the ASPIRE scheme scope which are discussed in detail as follows:
1.) Addition of value to the agricultural and forest produce sector.
2.) Multiple business models for aggregation & value addition to the businesses from the rural areas.
3.) Initiating principles for designing the business models applicable for the rural areas.
4.) Technological adaptation by automating agricultural practices and various other related activities.
5.) Business models that create local jobs in rural locations, as well as introduce business concepts that have a social impact.
6.) Agricultural pre/post-harvest waste recycling, on/off farm connected animal husbandry processes etc.
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ASPIRE scheme eligibility :
The ASPIRE scheme has proven to be one of the most promising schemes for the welfare of the MSME’S. All the start-ups and emerging new businesses are eligible to take the benefit of this scheme. The following are some of the steps to remember for the ASPIRE scheme eligibility :
1.) When the application is filled for the scheme, it is sent to the ASPIRE scheme eligibility committee which comes under the Ministry of MSME. This same committee is responsible for providing support related to the scheme.
2.) Once an enterprise fulfils all the mandatory guidelines laid down by the committee, the ASPIRE scheme steering committee deals with the general process and thus provides all the benefits to the beneficiaries under this scheme.
Components of the ASPIRE Scheme :
There are three main components which form an integral part of the ASPIRE scheme –
1.) Livelihood Business Incubation (LBI) :
The primary objective of the Livelihood Business Incubation is setting up business incubators to incubate, provide skill development training to youth, facilitate funding and imbibe the culture of entrepreneurship amongst young entrepreneurs who wish to setup their new businesses. Creating ample job opportunities at the local level is the primary objective of such incubators. They tend to create a very favourable ecosystem for entrepreneurial development in the country. These incubators create enterprises on a large scale by further developing those commercial activities which are already established.
2.) Technology Business Incubation (TBI) :
These types of incubators are an effective tool for economic development. TBI promotes the growth of an enterprise by the application of technology and software. They tend to encourage growth in the local economies and provide a blueprint for further adoption. These incubators mainly focus on those technologies that require support for the commercialisation and future growth. The programmes developed under the TBI’s include the support and organizing the incubation centres, idea incubation, fostering the development of innovative ideas and developing them into relevant enterprises and accelerator programmes.
3.) Funds managed by SIDBI :
The ‘Fund of Funds’ is utilized by SIDBI to contribute to various venture capital funds for investing in the start-ups and early stage enterprises. The innovative means of finance of SIDBI also include equity, quasi-equity, angel fund, challenge fund, impact fund, etc. Under the ASPIRE scheme, investments are made in the rural areas and not exclusively in the IT domain businesses. The start-up promotion targets those knowledge initiatives that require support & nurturing to succeed in developing technology and business enterprises in innovation, entrepreneurship, forward and backward linkages, etc. in the agro-based industry.
The ASPIRE Scheme thus helps in promoting innovation of the MSME businesses by new jobs creation and effectively contributing towards the up and coming meta story of India.