Telangana’s MSME Policy, WE Hub come for appreciation in Economic Survey 2024-25

Telangana’s Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Policy, which was launched in September 2024, was appreciated in the Economic Survey 2024-25.
| Photo Credit: By Arrangement

The months-old Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Policy of Telangana which emphasises encouraging the enterprises to explore the e-commerce route for business growth and the State government’s women entrepreneurship focused initiative WE Hub, came for special mention in the Economic Survey 2024-25.

“The government of Telangana has announced a new MSME policy which, inter-alia, envisages an increase in e-commerce penetration in MSMEs by encouraging the participation of sellers on the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) portal and Government e Marketplace (GeM) portal,” said authors of the document that was tabled in Parliament on Friday (January 31, 2024).

The State’s MSME Policy, which was unveiled in September 2023, was cited in the context of India’s e-commerce exports. Noting government initiatives such as Make in India and Aatmanirbhar Bharat have enhanced support and focus on MSMEs and e-commerce exports, thus paving the way for more domestic sellers going global, they said State governments have taken various initiatives in collaboration with e-commerce market players in the recent past to boost exports.

“The Uttar Pradesh government recently implemented measures to enhance packaging and export capabilities by leveraging design, technology, and market access… also planning e-commerce hubs to facilitate small producers to sell to aggregators. The government of Telangana has announced a new MSME policy which…” according to the report.

Factorsproviding impetus to India’s e-commerce exports range from expanding data connectivity, increased penetration of smartphones, a rise in availability and use of digital wallets and safer online payments, increased income levels of customers and growing familiarity with digital shopping platforms.

Amid the growth opportunities for the e-commerce export ecosystem are also a few challenges pertaining to regulatory frameworks and compliance obligations, especially the roles of sellers and e-commerce platform operators are not yet clearly defined.

The reference to WE Hub in the Survey was made in a section dedicated to Employment and Skill Development. The Women Entrepreneurs (WE) Hub is a good example from the State of Telangana of how the support of the government can help women’s entrepreneurship flourish. It is India’s first State-led incubator for women entrepreneurs, the author said on the initiative whose operations were launched nearly seven years ago in Hyderabad.

WE Hub was started with a mission to ensure all women entrepreneurs in the country have access to technical, financial, governmental and policy support required to start up, scale up, sustain and accelerate with global market access. It has raised ₹177 crore in funding and as many as 6,376 start-ups and SMEs have been incubated. It has engaged with 7,828 entrepreneurs and launched 87 start-up programmes with 75% of the startups surviving beyond 2 years, the Survey report said.