Denying reports that the government is charging a registration fee for filing Udyog Aadhar Memorandum, the only form of registration for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) in India, the Ministry said the registration is free of cost.

“The Udyog Aadhar Memorandum has no fee. You can get it free of cost in three minutes. It is on our ministry’s site,” MSME Secretary K.K. Jalan told.

“You can go to our website and there is no charge. What the people have done is that they have created websites, claiming they will help you in getting the registration and, in addition, provide other services,” he said.

“We have made the registration of MSMEs possible online. There is just one page simple registration form online. One can get his firm or SME (small and medium enterprise) registered online within 3-4 minutes, without any cost,” he added.

Jalan added: “There are some complaints with us. We have also filed a complaint with the CBI, mentioning some sites which are fleecing people. I would like to clear that it is free of cost, it is a three-minute job and you should not pay even a single rupee for registration.”

People facing problems with the registration can just walk into any MSME office or MSME tool room and get it done, Jalan said. The Ministry has 100 offices across the country.

He said the sector creates around 15-20 lakh jobs every year.

The three categories of enterprises under MSMEs are based on the size of investment.

Micro is where the plant and machinery investment is about Rs 25 lakh or less. Small is where the investment is not more than Rs 5 crore, and medium is where investment is not more than Rs 10 crore.

The MSMEs can be divided into three categories. One category of MSMEs can be called ancillary industry, which has come up for assisting a large industry to produce.

The second category comes up for providing services to the population. The third category is for converting farm produce or raw material into value-added product.

Source:  Business Standard