Challenges Faced by MSMEs during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Way Ahead

Ruchi Bhalla

Chapter 7 in Businesses: Resilience and Sustainability:Evidence from Emerging Market Developing Economies, 2023, pp 121-138 from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.

Abstract: India’s growth is largely due to the presence of small, informal firms that operate in the unorganized sector. The unorganized sector forms a large fraction of India’s GDP. According to the NSSO, there are nearly 63 million MSMEs in the country. As per the recent reports, MSMEs contribute around 30% to India’s GDP, and based on conservative estimates, employ around 50% of industrial workers and 20% of women workers. The coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) lockdown has substantially disrupted the operations of these MSMEs due to their dependence on the cash economy that has been severely hit by the lockdown, the physical non-availability of workers and restrictions in the availability of raw materials and transport infrastructure. This will have substantial ramifications throughout the economy and, therefore, a robust policy response is essential.The chapter is drafted to gain information about the challenges that have been faced by MSMEs during the pandemic and also to study the implications of government policies that focused on the regrowth of this sector. The study also focuses on defining a way ahead for MSMEs and highlights the key policy measures to control the fallout of the sector.

Keywords: Business Resilience; Sustainable Business Strategies; Micro Small & Medium Enterprises; Women Entrepreneurs; Stock Markets; Developments in ASEAN Economies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L21 L26 M1 M14 M16 Q01 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/9789811266539_0007 (application/pdf)
https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/9789811266539_0007 (text/html)
Ebook Access is available upon purchase.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wsi:wschap:9789811266539_0007

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in World Scientific Book Chapters from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tai Tone Lim ().