NEW DELHI:Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said in the Rajya Sabha that the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector has benefited the maximum from the Atmanirbhar Bharat package.
Replying to the debate on the Motion of Thanks to the President's address, he said that there were certain sectors that were focused more and these are the MSME which provides major employment while the other is agriculture.
"The MSME sector was one of the sectors that got maximum benefit from the government scheme of Production Linked Incentive (PLI) and now India is a leading mobile manufacturer, and we are also progressing in exports. Engineering goods made by MSME have provided a huge contribution to the current export numbers. To promote this sector, the government has also decided that a tender below Rs 200 crore will only be available for Indians and this will help boost the MSME sector, " Modi said, adding that the defence corridors set up in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have been fulfilling the needs of defence procurement.
Speaking on job creation, Modi said the recent increase in the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) payroll, indicated that there has been an increase in jobs after the opening of the lockdown and hiring is double. "A total of one crore 20 lakh were enrolled under EPFO wherein around 65 lakh were of those under 25 years of age, this means that this was their first job while NASSCOM said that after 2017, around 27 lakh jobs were given because of the increase in the manufacturing sector, " he added.
Talking about the unicorns, Modi said that the total number of unicorns was the highest in the last one year and that also exceeded the total number of unicorns till now.
On the agriculture sector, he said that in fact during the corona time, the farmers continued to produce bumper crops and the government also procured grain in huge quantities. The same focus was given to the various infrastructure projects to generate employment. He added that the farm sector has produced bumper wheat and rice crops and the government had also procured these crops on increased MSP where the money was transferred to their account directly through the Direct Benefit Transfer.
Talking about inflation, he said that price rise in America is at a 40-year high, in Britain it is at a 30-year high, but we, despite the pandemic, have tried to arrest price rise; "If you compare it to UPA then you will know what is price rise. Under UPA, it was in double digits."