As all of you are associated in some ways with the MSME sector, its critical role and place in the Indian economy is very well known to all of you in terms of employment generation, exports and economic empowerment of a vast section of the population and I do not want to spend a lot of time overemphasizing it.
But let me quote just a couple of statistics. As per available statistics (4th Census of MSME Sector), this sector employs an estimated 59.7 million persons spread over 26.1 million enterprises.