Guwahati, Sept. 11: The Centre today asked the Assam government to review the role of the state-level bankers' committee in ensuring expeditious flow of credit to small entrepreneurs in the state.

"I would request Assam chief secretary V.K. Pipersenia to review the role of the state-level bankers committee in ensuring efficient and expeditious flow of credit to small entrepreneurs," said secretary of Union ministry of MSME (micro, small and medium enterprises) Anup K. Pujari, while addressing the MSME summit here today.

The summit was organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce to address the issues of MSME sector and find a way to realise the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's flagship programme "Make in India".

"The MSME facilitation centre here also needs to step in and help vendors realise what is due to them," Pujari said.

In the present scenario, it becomes imperative for the government to create an environment that enables growth of MSMEs for economic development. Pujari urged entrepreneurs to come up with innovative solutions for the growth of their enterprise and sought the government's role only as a facilitator in the process.

Chief secretary Pipersenia said entrepreneurs should focus on meeting the unfulfilled needs of society to be successful. "I would suggest the first-generation entrepreneurs to start small, be successful, upscale, become big and help other entrepreneurs to grow," Pipersenia added. He also said the state government was proactively working to create the required environment to streamline the process of business in the state.

MSMEs constitute more than 80 per cent of the total number of industrial enterprises and contribute nearly 45 per cent to manufacturing and about 40 per cent to the Indian export sector. The contribution of MSMEs to the Indian gross domestic product (GDP) is 8 per cent.

Despite playing a pivotal role in the Indian economy, this sector is plagued with several problems such as sub-optimal scale of operation, technological obsolescence, supply chain inefficiencies, increasing domestic and global competition and funds shortage.

S.S. Barik, regional director of Reserve Bank of India said the apex bank had set a target to train 4,500 people to build capacity. "We are conducting a workshop on the national mission for capacity building for bankers here next week," Barik said.

Speakers at the summit also dwelt on the role of the government and financial institutions in enabling an MSME-friendly environment, simplification of regulations for facilitating start-ups, among others.