IMEs with an Udyam Assist Certificate to be treated by the RBI as Micro Enterprises under MSME for the purposes of PSL classification

The Reserve Bank of India (“RBI”) has issued a notification on “Formalisation of Informal Micro Enterprises on Udyam Assist Platform”.

RBI has informed that an interface has been created between the Udyam Assist Platform (“UAP”) and Udyam Registration Portal (“URP”) to enable the transition and migration of the Informal Micro Enterprises (“IMEs”) from UAP to URP, once IMEs obtain the mandatorily required documents.

Now, IMEs with an Udyam Assist Certificate will be treated as Micro Enterprises under MSME for the purposes of Priority Sector Lending (“PSL”) classification.

Background:

On August, 2020 RBI had issued a notification on new Definition of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises wherein all lenders were advised to obtain ‘Udyam Registration Certificate’ for classification of entities as MSME. Thereafter, the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (‘MSME’), had launched the UAP to facilitate formalisation of IMEs through online generation of Udyam Assist Certificate. Registration on the platform is done with the assistance of Designated Agencies which are RBI regulated entities (including scheduled commercial banks, non-banking financial companies, etc.).

Further, on 23^rd March, 2023 , the Central Government had specified that the certificate issued on the UAP to IMEs will be treated at par with Udyam Registration Certificate for the purpose of availing Priority Sector Lending (PSL) benefits.

The Central Government has clarified to RBI that IMEs are those enterprises which are unable to get registered on the Udyam Registration Portal (URP) due to lack of mandatory required documents such as Permanent Account Number (PAN) or Goods and Services Tax Identification Number (GSTIN).

Hence such enterprises are unable to avail the benefits of Government schemes or programmes. Further, it has been clarified that the turnover of enterprises exempted from filing returns under the provisions of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 will be the sole criterion to be defined as IMEs for the purpose of UAP.

Accordingly, IMEs are those enterprises that are not covered in the Goods and Services Tax regime. In light of this the present notification has been issued.

Source: Reserve Bank of India