CII launches ‘Digital Saksham’ initiative with Mastercard and ni-msme

By Edil Corneille

Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) announced a strategic MoU with global payments technology company Mastercard and National Institute for Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (ni-msme), an organisation of the Ministry of MSME, Government of India (GOI), to launch the Digital Saksham Initiative, an expansive program designed to strengthen the competitiveness of MSMEs with the digital know-how and acceptance of it.

This collaboration aims to educate and train MSMEs, enabling them to integrate into the digital economy and access credit, expand their market access, diversify their customer base, digitize their financial operations and solidify their supply chain.

“…I am pleased to note that the project Digital Saksham by CII, Mastercard and ni-msme entails a scale of reaching out to more than 3 lakh MSMEs in 25 cities including rural and peri-urban clusters. This will help drive systemic transformation and further accelerate achievements towards meeting our goals and ensure financial inclusion,” added Nitin Gadkari, Hon’ble Minister for MSMEs and Road Transport and Highways of India, while speaking at the 17th Global SME Business Summit 2020 organized by CII in partnership with the Ministry of MSME, GOI.

“I congratulate the Digital Saksham project with Mastercard and Ni-msme, I’ll suggest the CII team to engage with MSMEs further on helping MSMEs become digital,” A K Sharma, Secretary, Ministry of MSME stated.

Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII mentioned, “We have an ambitious outreach target on creating awarness on digital financial literacy for 3 lakhs micro and small business who will attain the knowledge and access to personal finance strategies and digital financial instruments through this intervention which will spread across 25 cities in 7 states.”

Ari Sarker, Co-President, Asia Pacific, Mastercard said, “Small businesses play an enormous role in rebuilding local communities and supporting economic recovery. It is critical that we look for solutions that don’t just focus on how we can support SMEs, but also those that are designed to enable SMEs to support themselves. Towards this goal, Mastercard is delighted to partner with the Government of India via the National Institute for Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (ni-msme) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to launch the Digital Saksham initiative. The program is an extension of Mastercard’s global and India commitment to empower, enable, and enhance small entrepreneurs making them more competitive.”

The implementation of the project is proposed from January 2021 and execution of training among the MSMEs from June 2021, confirmed Amita Sarkar, Deputy Director General, CII and Alison L. Eskesen, Vice President, Mastercard’s Center For Inclusive Growth.