Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch the support and outreach initiative for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) on Friday and the government may announce a host of measures, including enhanced interest subsidy, for the troubled sector.

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The MSME sector employs 111 million people, contributing around 30 percent to the GDP, according to a PTI report.

Modi will launch the initiative in New Delhi and similar launch programmes will be held at 100 locations across the country, where union ministers, and ministers from state governments will be present, according to a government statement.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and the Minister of State for MSME, Giriraj Singh, will also be present at the event.

The event will start with a special address by Modi where he is expected to touch upon several matters of vital interest to the MSME sector.

The outreach and support programme, which will run for the next 100 days, is expected to provide greater synergy to the efforts being made for the MSME sector.

The progress of this programme, to be implemented in mission mode, will be monitored on a continuous basis by senior officials of Union and State Governments.

A major obstacle for growth of MSMEs is their inability to access timely and adequate finance as most of them are in niche segments where credit appraisal is a major challenge.

Note ban imposed in November 2016 has led to further decline in the already falling credit to the MSME sector, as per the RBI's Mint Street Memo report.

About 97 percent of MSMEs operate in the informal sector.

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First Published:Nov 2, 2018 11:18 AM IST