MSME / Udyam Registration in Vanagaram-Ambattur Road, Chennai

Sub-section (h) of Section 2 of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Act 2006 defines the term enterprise as an industrial undertaking or a business concern or any other establishment engaged in the manufacture or production of goods pertaining to any industry specified in the First Schedule to the Industries (Development and Regulation) Act 1951, or engaged in providing or rendering of any service or services. It is to be noted that this definitional anchor decides which activity qualifies for classification as a micro, small or medium enterprise and, by extension, which activity may obtain a Udyam Registration certificate.

Sub-section (1) of Section 7 of the MSMED Act 2006, as substantively amended through Notification S.O. 2119(E) dated 26-06-2020, provides the composite criteria for classification of enterprises. An enterprise is classified as micro where investment in plant and machinery or equipment does not exceed one crore rupees and turnover does not exceed five crore rupees; as small where the corresponding figures do not exceed ten crore and fifty crore rupees; and as medium where they do not exceed fifty crore and two hundred fifty crore rupees respectively. Both the investment and turnover ceilings have to be satisfied simultaneously.

Section 8 of the Act prescribes the filing of a Memorandum by the enterprise. Following the regime change of 01-07-2020, this Memorandum has been replaced by the Udyam Registration filed online on the Udyam Registration Portal. Sub-section (1) of Section 8 read with Notification G.S.R. 621(E) dated 25-06-2020 lays down that the filing is paperless, based on self-declaration, and integrated with the PAN and GSTIN databases of the enterprise.

Section 9 of the Act empowers the Central Government to notify programmes, guidelines and instructions for facilitating the promotion and development and enhancing the competitiveness of the enterprises classified under the Act. The scheme architecture for credit-linked subsidy, ZED certification, technology upgradation under CLCSS, and the credit guarantee framework administered by CGTMSE flow from this enabling provision.

Section 22 of the Act mandates that where any buyer is required to get its annual accounts audited under any law for the time being in force, such buyer shall furnish in the audited annual accounts the principal amount and the interest due thereon remaining unpaid to any supplier as at the end of each accounting year, the amount of interest paid by the buyer under Section 16, the amount of payments made beyond the appointed day, the amount of interest accrued and remaining unpaid, and the amount of further interest remaining due and payable.

Section 16 provides that where the buyer fails to make payment to the supplier as required under Section 15, the buyer shall be liable to pay compound interest with monthly rests at three times the bank rate notified by the Reserve Bank of India, computed from the appointed day or from the date immediately following the date agreed upon. This interest liability is statutory and cannot be contracted out of by the parties.

What is Udyam Registration and why does it matter

Statutory basis under the MSMED Act 2006

Udyam Registration is the present-day formal recognition of an enterprise as a Micro, Small or Medium Enterprise under the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Act 2006 (the MSMED Act). The Act was enacted on the recommendation of the S.P. Gupta Study Group on Development of Small Enterprises and replaced the earlier industries-development legislation that had only recognised small-scale industrial units. The Udyam Registration regime itself was constituted by Notification S.O. 1702(E) of 26-06-2020 issued by the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises in exercise of powers under Section 7 read with Section 8 of the MSMED Act, supplemented by G.S.R.621(E) which established the Udyam Registration portal as the single window for the entire process. The certificate is a legal recognition; it is not a licence to do business, but it unlocks an entire suite of statutory, fiscal and procurement-related benefits.

Replacement of the earlier Udyog Aadhaar regime

The Udyam Registration regime replaced the earlier Udyog Aadhaar Memorandum (UAM) system, which itself had replaced the legacy SSI registration administered by the District Industries Centres. Udyog Aadhaar had been launched under the Empowered Group of Secretaries on MSME 2018 framework as a self-declaration regime, but it had structural weaknesses including duplicate registrations on the same PAN, weak verification, and no automatic data-linkage with the income-tax and GST databases. S.O. 1702(E) addressed each of these by mandating PAN-mapping, Aadhaar-authentication of the proprietor or authorised signatory, and a one-PAN-one-enterprise rule. Existing Udyog Aadhaar holders were given until 31-03-2022 (subsequently extended to 30-06-2022) to migrate to the new Udyam regime, failing which the old registration ceased to operate for any statutory purpose.

Economic significance and policy objective

The U.K. Sinha Committee Report 2019 on MSME finance documented that the MSME sector contributes approximately thirty per cent of national gross value added and is responsible for forty-five per cent of national manufacturing output and forty per cent of exports. The OECD SME Policy Index 2018 placed India in the middle band of comparable jurisdictions on the dimension of MSME formalisation, with the principal weakness being low coverage of the very-small and informal end of the sector. The policy objective of the Udyam regime is therefore twofold: to bring informal enterprises into the recorded universe through low-friction self-declaration, and to make the recorded universe legally bankable through automatic data-linkage with PAN, GST and TReDS, thereby reducing the credit-information asymmetry that has historically constrained MSME lending in India.

Benefits under the Public Procurement Policy 2012

358 items reserved for exclusive MSE purchase

Annexure A to the Public Procurement Policy 2012 lists 358 items that central ministries and CPSEs are required to procure exclusively from Micro and Small Enterprises. The list spans a wide range of products including office furniture, laboratory equipment, leather goods, hand tools, certain textile items, electrical accessories, and specified chemicals. The list is reviewed and updated periodically by the Ministry of MSME in consultation with the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade. An MSE manufacturing any item on the Annexure A list enjoys a captive market for that item in central procurement, subject to satisfying basic quality and delivery norms set by the procuring entity, and the Udyam Registration is the qualifying credential.

25 per cent procurement set-aside

The Public Procurement Policy for Micro and Small Enterprises Order 2012, notified by the Ministry of MSME in exercise of powers under Section 11 of the MSMED Act, mandates that every central ministry, department and Central Public Sector Enterprise procure a minimum of twenty-five per cent of its total annual procurement of goods and services from Micro and Small Enterprises. The 2012 figure was originally twenty per cent and was raised to twenty-five per cent in 2018. The policy is implemented through the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) portal and through individual procurement tenders floated by the procuring entities. The set-aside is administered by the Public Procurement Cell of the Ministry of MSME, which collects compliance data annually and publishes performance against the target on its dashboard.

Sub-set-aside for SC/ST and Women MSEs

Within the twenty-five per cent overall set-aside, the 2018 amendment introduced two further sub-sets: four per cent of the procurement is reserved for Micro and Small Enterprises owned by Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe entrepreneurs, and three per cent for Micro and Small Enterprises owned by women entrepreneurs. The sub-sets are administered through the GeM portal's filtering mechanism, which surfaces eligible vendors to procuring entities on a priority basis. Eligibility for the SC/ST sub-set requires that at least fifty-one per cent of the enterprise be owned by SC/ST individuals, and the women sub-set requires equivalent ownership by women. The ownership tag is captured at the Udyam-registration stage through a self-declaration field and is verified at the GeM-onboarding stage.

Section 43B(h) of the Income Tax Act and the 45-day payment rule

Acceptance, deemed acceptance and the 45/15 day clock

The 45-day clock under Section 15 of the MSMED Act commences from the day of acceptance of the supply by the buyer. Acceptance is defined as the day on which the buyer accepts the goods or services without raising any written objection within fifteen days from delivery. Where the buyer raises a written objection within fifteen days, acceptance is deemed to occur on the day on which the objection is removed by the supplier to the buyer's satisfaction. The 45-day cap (or 15-day in the absence of a written agreement) is therefore a hard ceiling on payment terms in the buyer-MSE relationship, and any contract clause purporting to set a longer credit period is unenforceable to the extent of inconsistency.

Interest on delayed payment under Section 16

In addition to the income-tax disallowance under Section 43B(h), Section 16 of the MSMED Act imposes a compound-interest liability on a buyer who fails to pay an MSE supplier within the Section 15 deadline. The interest rate is three times the bank rate notified by the RBI, computed with monthly rests, and runs from the day immediately following the Section 15 deadline until the date of actual payment. The interest is payable irrespective of any contract to the contrary, and Section 23 of the MSMED Act bars the buyer from claiming the interest as a deduction under the Income Tax Act. The MSE supplier may invoke the Micro and Small Enterprise Facilitation Council under Section 18 for adjudication of the principal and interest claim.

Statutory text and disallowance mechanism

Section 43B(h) of the Income Tax Act 1961 was inserted by Finance Act 2023 effective from assessment year 2024-25. The provision provides that any sum payable by an assessee to a Micro or Small Enterprise beyond the time-limit specified in Section 15 of the MSMED Act shall be allowed as a deduction only in the year in which it is actually paid. Section 15 of the MSMED Act specifies that payment must be made within the time agreed in writing between the parties (capped at forty-five days from the date of acceptance) or, in the absence of a written agreement, within fifteen days from the date of acceptance. Where the deadline is breached, the corresponding expenditure stands disallowed in the buyer's hands until actual payment.

CGTMSE collateral-free credit cover

Guarantee fee structure

CGTMSE charges a one-time Annual Guarantee Fee (AGF) on the sanctioned credit facility. The AGF rate varies by sanctioned loan size and borrower category — for women-led, SC/ST and ZED-certified Micro enterprises in the lowest slab the rate is around 0.37 per cent per annum, and for general-category borrowers in the higher slabs the rate rises to around 1.35 per cent per annum. The AGF is payable by the Member Lending Institution to the Trust but is typically passed on to the borrower as part of the loan processing or service charges. The fee is in addition to the lender's own interest rate, and a borrower comparing collateral-secured and CGTMSE-covered options should evaluate the all-in cost rather than the headline interest rate alone.

Eligibility and Udyam linkage

Only Udyam-registered Micro and Small Enterprises are eligible for CGTMSE cover. Medium Enterprises are outside the scheme, which is consistent with the policy choice that Medium enterprises (with turnover up to ₹250 crore) have adequate access to commercial credit on their own balance-sheet strength. The Udyam Registration Number is captured by the lender in the CGTMSE portal at the time of loan-cover invocation, and any subsequent re-classification of the borrower from Small to Medium under S.O. 2119(E) results in the cover continuing for the residual tenure of the loan but being unavailable for any incremental sanction. Educational institutions, agricultural activities and retail/wholesale trade are excluded from CGTMSE.

Sub-schemes and special windows

Beyond the standard CGTMSE cover, several special windows are operated by the Trust. The Sub-debt Scheme covers stressed Micro and Small Enterprises that require quasi-equity infusion. The Credit Guarantee Scheme for Women-led MSEs (CGS-WMSE) provides enhanced cover percentages and reduced fees for women-owned enterprises. The Credit Guarantee Scheme for Startups (CGSS) is administered by the National Credit Guarantee Trustee Company and provides cover for venture-debt and equity-linked instruments. Practitioners advising MSE borrowers should map the borrower profile to the most advantageous sub-scheme before the loan application is filed, since the Udyam Registration Number and underlying classification are the qualifying credentials for each sub-scheme.

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