Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises contribute enormously to the socio-economic development of the country and this is not a hidden fact. MSMEs play a crucial role in providing large employment opportunities at comparatively lower capital cost than large industries. They also help in industrialization of rural & backward areas, thereby, reducing regional imbalances and assuring more equitable distribution of national income and wealth.
According to the SME chamber of India, the MSME sector consists of 36 million units which provide employment to over 80 million people. The sector through more than 6,000 products contributes about 8% to GDP besides 45% to the total manufacturing output and 40% to the exports from the country. Based on these figures one can inarguably assess the importance of the MSMEs.
The Haryana Government has just launched a scheme to grant financial assistance of up to Rs 25 lakh to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) for registration of patents for products and processes. According to the notification in this relation “The State Government intends to promote the regulation of patents among the enterprises and protect their innovation in the era of globalization or secure their rights over their traditional product/process and have, thus, made provision for grant of financial assistance on grant of patent registration.”
Under this scheme a reimbursement of 50% of the actual expenses (including filing fees, consultancy fees, search fees and maintenance fees) with a maximum of Rs. 25 lakh for both domestic and international patent registration has been made available.
The scheme will apply to all MSME’s in the state which have acquired patent registrations after August 14, 2015 and before August 14, 2020. The scheme shall remain in operation for a period of 5 years from August 15th, 2015.
The Eligibility Criteria as specified in the document is provided below:
All MSMEs existing anywhere in the state, which have filed EM PartII/Udyog Aadhaar Memorandum with respective District Industries Centre shall be eligible under the scheme. The industrial units must also comply with the following conditions:
- The item of manufacture of the unit should not fall in the restrictive list as notified by the State Government from time to time.
- The unit should have obtained NOC/CLU from competent authority, if applicable.
- The unit should be in commercial production.
- The unit should be in regular production at the time of disbursement and the assistance shall not be released to the closed unit.
This initiative by the Haryana Government is highly appreciable and should serve as an example to other states to follow suit.
Other details of the scheme can be downloaded from here.
Authored by Gaurav Mishra
References – MSME, Financial assistance
