“DIGITAL SAKSHAM” DIGITALLY ENABLING 20,000 ENTERPRISES IN PUNJAB

Face2News/Ludhiana/Chandigarh

Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), and Mastercard will support 3,00,000 micro and small enterprises (MSEs) through their digital empowerment program called Digital Saksham. MSEs based in 29 districts of eight states, including Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Punjab, Delhi, Assam, Telangana, and Kerala will benefit from the program. In Punjab, Digital Saksham will endeavour to bring 20,000 enterprises into the digital economy. 

With the emergence of COVID-19, it became pivotal for businesses to digitize in order to continue operations. Launched in 2020, Digital Saksham, continues to offer customized trainings in regional languages to handhold and support small businesses to digitize. It includes comprehensive training modules covering the basics of digitization, importance of cybersecurity, online tools for accounting and bookkeeping and market linkages. 

In Punjab, small businesses in Ludhiana, Phagwara, Jalandhar & Amritsar, are being trained under Digital Saksham, across various clusters including auto parts, retailers, textiles, electricals etc. So far, over 20,000 micro enterprises have benefited through the program with 2500 trained on the usage of digital tools and 980 adopting digital tools to improve business efficiency. 

In Punjab, small businesses in Ludhiana, Phagwara, Jalandhar & Amritsar, are being trained under Digital Saksham, across various clusters including auto parts, retailers, textiles, electricals etc. So far, over 20,000 micro enterprises have benefited through the program with 2500 trained on the usage of digital tools and 980 adopting digital tools to improve business efficiency. 

Digital Saksham is an ambitious project by CII and Mastercard with a potential reach of 300,000 MSMEs in 55 cities/districts across eight states over a three-year period. So far more than 85000 MSMEs have attained the knowledge of and access to personal finance strategies and instruments through digital solutions.

The project continues to focus on enabling micro-enterprises to transform from physical to digital payments, handhold to register on Udyam portal, e-filling of the tax, building website for the products and exploring digital trade to connect beyond geographies. And resolving compliances issues. The program is targeting the Own Account Enterprises (OAEs), Micro Factory Sector Enterprises (FSEs) and Small Enterprises (SMEs) and conduct customized trainings with industry experts on the benefits of digitization.