The Role of MSME in Creating Rural Entrepreneurship and Employment in North East India

Abstract

Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) plays an important role for most of the developing economy. In Indian economy, MSME has emerged as highly vibrant and dynamic sector for the last five decades. This sector helps in providing opportunities for upcoming entrepreneurs; generates employment and contributes towards industrial development. It is the 2^nd largest employer after agriculture sector and generates 24.4 crore employment (Udyam Portal and UAP). MSME contributes around 30% of India’s GDP, 36% of total manufacturing output and over 45% of India’s export (MSME Annual Report, 2024-25). The North East India (NEI) comprises of eight states namely Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura. The total geographical area and population of the region is 2, 62,179 sq. km and 45.50 million in 2011. The North East India is gateway to East Asia and has been acknowledged as a strategic focus for ‘Act East Policy’, earlier known as ‘Look East Policy. Out of India’s total international land border (15,106.7 km), 36 per cent is shared by North East India with its neighbouring countries. Sharing a large international land border emerges as a big opportunity for North East India to reap benefits of cross border trade with neighbouring countries through development and growth of different programmes and schemes adopted by Ministry of MSME. North East India is endowed with plenty of untapped natural resources like forest, rivers, petroleum, copper, iron and uranium etc. These resources can be utilized for all economic development and employment generation in the region. The Ministry of MSME is actively promoting the development of MSME in the NER through the different programmes and schemes. The NER is still depending on mainland of India in necessary commodities and manufacturing needs. More development and growth of MSME through different programmes and schemes is the need of the hour for the NER. The present study will highlight the role play by the MSME in creating rural entrepreneurship and generating employment in North East India in particular and India in general. The study is descriptive in nature and the study is purely based on secondary data extracted from various Government reports - MSME Annual Reports and research papers related to MSME, books, magazines etc.