Government: No record of MSMEs shut down amid pandemic

New Delhi : After claiming that the government has no data on the deaths of migrant labourers amid the nationwide lockdown as well as doctors who lost their lives due to Covid-19, the Centre on Saturday said that it has no record of MSMEs that have faced closure in the wake of the pandemic.

Interestingly, in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Pratap Chandra Sarangi also said that there is no data on the number of MSMEs closed down from FY 2014-15 to FY 2019-20.

On a question on the number of small and medium businesses closed from March to August 2020 due to the economic distress, the Minister said: "No such record is available." As per the government data on MSMEs, over 90.58 lakh such units exist in the country.