MSME Innovation Scheme

MSME Innovation Scheme

News: Recently, the Ministry of MSME (Medium, Small and Micro Enterprises) has launched the MSME Innovative Scheme (Incubation, Design and IPR) along with the MSME IDEA HACKATHON 2022.

Details:
• It is the combination of existing sub-schemes around incubation, design, and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) for MSMEs.The government also announced equity support of up to Rs 1 crore for commercialisation of ideas, designs and patents across all three sub-schemes and also to help MSMEs further scale up to raise subsequent funding.For this, a separate corpus will be created and managed by SIDBI (Small Industries Development Bank of India) as the fund manager.
• SIDBI set up on 2nd April 1990 under an Act of Indian Parliament, acts as the Principal Financial Institution for Promotion, Financing and Development of the MSME sector as well as for co-ordination of functions of institutions engaged in similar activities.The new scheme will ensure support through guidance, financial support, technical support, and more to MSMEs to scale up.
• The new scheme would act as a hub for innovation activities facilitating and guiding the development of ideas into viable business propositions that can benefit society directly and can be marketed successfully.

Components:
• The primary objective of the scheme is to promote and support untapped creativity and to promote adoption of latest technologies in MSMEs that seek the validation of their ideas at the proof-of-concept level.
• As part of the incubation scheme, the government announced the launch of an MSME Idea Hackathon to invite ideas from MSMEs, innovators and students through host institutes.
• Financial assistance up to Rs. 15 lakh per idea and up to Rs. 1.00 crore for relevant plants and machines will be provided.
• The objective of this component is to bring the Indian manufacturing sector and Design expertise/ Design fraternity on to a common platform.
• It aims to provide expert advice and cost-effective solutions on real time design problems for new product development, its continuous improvement and value addition in existing/new products.
• IPR (Intellectual Property Rights): The objective of the scheme is to improve the IP culture in India with a view to enhance the awareness of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) amongst the MSMEs and to encourage creative intellectual endeavor in the Indian economy.
• It also aims to take suitable measures for the protection of ideas, technological innovation and knowledgedriven business strategies developed by the MSMEs for their commercialization and effective utilization of IPR tools through IP Facilitation Centre.
• Financial assistance upto Rs. 5 lakh for Foreign Patent, Rs. 1.00 lakh Domestic Patent, Rs. 2.00 lakh for GI (Geographical Indication) Registration, Rs. 15,000/- for Design Registration, Rs.10,000/- for Trademark in the form of reimbursement.