In the Budget 2025-26, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed to launch a ‘National Manufacturing Mission’.
In the beginning of her speech, Sitharaman dubbed micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSME) at the centre of the government’s focus to boost manufacturing.
Proposing the National Manufacturing Mission, Sitharaman said, “Our Government will set up a National Manufacturing Mission covering small, medium and large industries for furthering “Make in India” by providing policy support, execution roadmaps, governance and monitoring framework for central ministries and states.”
The ‘Make in India’ is among the flagship programmes of the Modi government to attract foreign investment in India with the idea of driving manufacturing.
In her Budget speech, Sitharaman indicated that the push for manufacturing will have an increased focus on renewable technology, such as electric vehicles (EVs), solar panels, etc.
“Given our commitment to climate-friendly development, the Mission will also support Clean Tech manufacturing. This will aim to improve domestic value addition and build our ecosystem for solar PV cells, EV batteries, motors and controllers, electrolysers, wind turbines, very high voltage transmission equipment and grid scale batteries,” said Sitharaman.
As part of the push for MSMEs, Sitharaman said the government would work to improve their access to credit.
For MSMEs, the credit guarantee cover will be enhanced from Rs 5 crore to Rs 10 crore, leading to additional credit of Rs 1.5 lakh crore in the next five years, said Sitharaman.
For startups, the credit guarantee cover will be enhanced from Rs 10 crore to Rs 20 crore with the guarantee fee being moderated to 1 per cent for loans in 27 focus sectors important for Atmanirbhar Bharat, said Sitharaman.
For well-run exporter MSMEs, the credit guarantee cover will be expanded to term loans up to Rs 20 crore.
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