Under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav campaign is in progress and in pursuance of the same, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has decided to launch a national campaign in 75 cities of different states of the Country and will make attempts to register 75 lakh traders under Udyami Aadhar.
CAIT National President Shri BC Bhartia and Secretary General Shri Praveen Khandelwal said that the CAIT has identified 75 cities and 75 teams of trade leaders in association with local trade associations to began the campaign from 10th April simultaneously in every city. Beside capitals of all States prominent cities in different states have been included in list of identified cities.
It is to be noted that few days back a delegation of CAIT led by Shri Praveen Khandelwal met Union Commerce Minister Mr. Piyush Goyal for discussion on few important issues of trade and during the course of discussion Shri Goyal advised the trade leaders to motivate more and more traders across the Country for obtaining Udhyam Aadhar so that large chunk of traders could also be benefitted with Udhyam Aadhar scheme.
Both the business leaders said that previously traders were a part of MSME definition but in March 2017, they were taken out from the purview of MSME and since then CAIT raised the issue of inclusion of traders under MSME and finally the Union Government decided to include traders under MSME category for the purpose priority sector lending and accordingly the Reserve Bank of India by issuing an order on 7th July,2021 included traders under MSME definition.
Shri Bhartia and Shri Khandelwal said that the traders registered with Udyami Aadhar will be competent to obtain financial loans from the Banks under priority sector lending under lower rate of interest in comparision to interest charged on other loans. It is certainly big relief for the funds starved business community which has gone through a very tough time in past two years due to covid pandemic and undergoing great financial crunch.
Shri Bhartia and Shri Khandelwal also said that if traders across the country are registered under this scheme, they are eligible to get the benefits of many other facilities and relief schemes available to the MSME sector. Under this scheme, traders with annual turnover of up to Rs 5 crores will be called as micro enterprises whereas those with annual turnover of 5 crores to 75 crores will be defined as small and those with annual turnover from 75 crores to 250 crores will get the status of medium enterprise. They said that that any trader from across the country can visit the portal of MSME and register himself under the enterprise free of cost else for the benefit of other traders, the CAIT has tied up with various agencies to get the registration done easily and efficiently for those traders who want CAT has identified various agencies which will help the traders in registration by charging a nominal fee.