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Technology for MSMEs: To help small business and startups through ‘information sharing’, the MSME Ministry on Thursday launched a dedicated portal for MSMEs to share their ideas, innovation, and research in respective sectors for public reviews for vetting before launching them. The portal – ideas.msme.gov.in – will also facilitate venture capital (VC) investors to connect with businesses, MSME Ministry said in a statement. The portal will act as a one-stop-shop for details about all MSME schemes offered by the central government and respective state governments. The website was launched by MSME Minister Nitin Gadkari.
“Startup or MSMEs having an idea can share on this portal. While Startup India portal has largely seen the influx of technology startups coming on the portal, this new portal will cater more to new businesses based in rural and semi-urban regions. This will certainly help India improve its Ease of Doing Business ranking as well,” Ashish Agarwal, Co-chair, Startup Council, Assocham told Financial Express Online. Agarwal was part of the video conference held by Gadkari with stakeholders of the MSME and startup ecosystem.
The portal will be of “great transformational significance for MSMEs,” said Gadkari. The registration form would mention areas of innovation and sectors where small businesses are focused on. The ideas submitted will be “reviewed by the concerned officer and publish them for public view. Registered users can rate these ideas (crowdsourcing) and venture capitalist can connect with the user having an idea, innovation and research,” the ministry said. This will help in research activities “like those in rural tribal knowledge, skills will get a chance for spreading their knowledge. Similarly, it can assist the farmers in planning, production, storage and marketing of their produce,” said Pratap Chandra Sarangi, MoS, MSME.
Since the ideas submitted will be open for public reviews, the government cautioned MSMEs in sharing ideas or innovation that are awaiting patent or are in the process of filing a patent. “It is solely the user’s responsibility to avoid uploading such innovation(s) on the platform,” the website said.
