Published in Lokmat Times -Business Page on 15.7.16
The Centre has declared an ease of doing business index where Rajasthan is placed at number six…

Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector in India is the second largest employer after the agriculture sector. Total investment of industrial units in the Rajasthan is over 1,800 crore and MSME generates direct employment for over 75,000 people. A substantial portion of this MSME employment is the rural workforce. Districts like Alwar, Jaipur and Udaipur account for about 50% of investment in MSME sector while the districts of Jaipur, Alwar and Jodhpur employ about 45% of MSME workforce.
There are about 4 lakh MSME units in Rajasthan which are registered with the commissionerate of industries. The total investment in MSME in the state is approximately Rs 29,000 crore.
Dr. K.L. Jain, Hony. Sec. General, Rajasthan Chamber of Commerce & Industry, says,”MSME can be a fillip for large scale industries, even public sector undertakings, provided they have technical collaborations with small scale industries.” Auto Component (Alwar), Gems & Jewellery (Jaipur, Jodhpur), Handicraft (Dausa, Jaipur, Bagru), Pottery (Udaipur, Jaipur), Terracotta (Dungarpur, Rajsamand, Sirohi), Mineral Grinding (Barmer), Textile (Sikar, Jodhpur, Kota, Bikaner) are the key clusters of Rajasthan. The state has export levels of around Rs 40,000 crores, with an MSME share of 40% including all sectors.
Around 20k Agro processing units in the state are making agro-processing the largest sector under MSME. Rajasthan is a preferred tourist destination hence tourism contribution to the State’s GDP is 13.4% much higher than the average of 9%.
The Resurgent Rajasthan summit was an initiative by the Government of Rajasthan to attract more investment in the State. The summit saw proposed investments worth more than Rs. 3.21 lakh crore by leading national and multinational companies in various sectors. Recently Rajasthan’s MSME policy has been launched for providing more flexibility and improving the ease of doing business.
Most of the Industry Training Institutes (ITIs) have been given to private sectors so as to run their own need based courses.-Anubha Agarwal