Ludhiana: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today launched the National SC/ST Hub here to provide support to entrepreneurs from the community.
With an initial outlay of Rs 490 crore, the hub will work towards strengthening market access/linkage, monitoring, capacity building, leveraging financial support schemes and sharing industry-best practices.
It will also enable central public sector enterprises to fulfill the procurement target set by the government.
The Public Procurement Policy 2012 stipulates that 4 per cent of procurement done by ministries, departments and CPSEs will have to be from enterprises owned by SC/ST entrepreneurs.
The MSME sector, including the service segment, is a key driver of India's economic growth as it contributes nearly 38 per cent to the country's gross domestic product (GDP) and employs close to 11 Crore people.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his budget speech had announced setting up of the National SC/ST Hub under the MSME Ministry.