Adopting Digital Practices: How SMEs in Food Sector can succeed by taking their businesses online in the post-COVID world

SMEs have remained a critical part of India’s growth engine and their role will be extremely crucial in the post-COVID-world. However, the bigger question now is: how will they survive the pandemic?

- Sandip Chhettri

India’s SMEs sector is a vibrant arena that employs 40% of the country’s workforce and contributes 30% to its GDP, is one of the biggest victims of the viral outbreak. Companies under this segment are significantly facing a slowdown in their operations mainly in the form of low liquidity and lack of workforce. To ensure sustainability, unfortunately, many players have strictly started taking survival measures like layoffs and salary deductions.

To help SME players sustain their businesses during this hour of crisis, the government has come forward with some much-needed measures. For instance, Long Term Repo Operations (LTRO) worth INR 100,000 crore rolled out by the Reserve Bank of India has enabled banks to increase their lending to SMEs at cheaper rates.

Along similar lines, the incumbent government has also come out with an economic package of INR 1.70 lakh crore under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana. This aims to help migrant workers and those below the poverty line by providing them with free foodgrain and cooking gas for the next three months.