Telangana

Telangana, a landlocked state in southern India, became the country’s 29th state on June 2, 2014. It shares its borders with Maharashtra to the north and west, Chhattisgarh to the northeast, Karnataka to the west, and Andhra Pradesh to the south and east. Hyderabad is the state capital. Telangana is ranked 12th in the country in terms of population (3.5 Crore as per the 2011 Census) and ranked 11th in terms of area (1,12,077 Sq. Km). The state has 33 districts, 612 mandals, and 12,769 Gram Panchayats.

Agriculture is the main occupation in Telangana with a large portion of the population involved in it. The State is famous for its rich heritage that includes Textile industry, mining, metal work, engineering, handicrafts, IT, Pharmaceutical, food processing, tourism, film industry and many others besides historical monuments and diversified culture.

The Industrial Sector’s contribution to the state economy has remained steady at around 18% of the Gross State Value Added (GSVA), and as of 2023-24 (AE), it stands at 18.5%. Telangana, known as the ‘State of Innovation’, boasts of a thriving ecosystem for MSMEs. With robust infrastructure, investor-friendly policies, and a proactive government, Telangana has become a hotspot for MSMEs growth and innovation. The state is home to about 2.6 million MSMEs, out of which 56% are in rural areas and 44% in urban areas, employing about 4 million plus people.

The Government has launched “Telangana MSME Policy 2024” on 18th September 2024 to create an enabling environment and to attract investments to ensure sustained growth of the industrial sector. On the same occasion, Hon’ble Chief Minister of Telangana launched the ambitious RAMP program in the state. Telangana signed the Letter of Undertaking (LoU) with the Ministry of MSME, Government of India on 20th July 2022. It submitted its Strategic Investment Plan (SIP) on 31st October 2023 and RPC approved projects worth Rs. 117.35 Cr for Telangana on 8th February 2024.

The key projects approved under SIP are as follows:

• Creation of a real-time MSME consolidated database to facilitate inter-department coordination for effective MSME policy making.
• Establishment of Enterprise Development Centres (EDCs) at DICs to strengthen institutional delivery of services for MSME competitiveness with special assistance to women entrepreneurs.
• Centre of Design Excellence (CoDE) Design, Brand promotion, Incubation & IPR to empower small businesses to elevate products through design and technology thereby making them more sustainable.
• Import Substitution to leverage capabilities of MSMEs of Telangana to identify and manufacture the products which are being imported, however, have the potential to be made in Telangana.
• Revivals of Distressed MSMEs to implement a digital transformation strategy and expand outreach for the Telangana Industrial Health Clinic Ltd. (TIHCL) to support distressed MSMEs.
• Mapping Energy intensive MSMEs clusters to make them energy efficient and exploring green financing initiatives as incentives for adoption of green technology.
• Greening MSMEs – Green pioneer support program for MSMEs to empower them to adopt green practices through network support from startups and academia.
• Transformation of SHGs and startups to MSMEs to empower SHGs/women led startups to evolve into sustainable MSEs.
• Women Acceleration Program to support existing women entrepreneurs that are looking to scale in the consumer services and retrial operations.
• Development of MSME Export Champions through Reverse Buyer Seller Meets to create MSME export champions from the identified thrust sectors in Telangana and create ready reckoners and export guides for top exporting sectors in the state.
• Benchmarking study to assess sectoral technology gaps to assess the current state of technology being used in these sectors in Telangana as compared to better performing states and International standards, and to provide a Technology roadmap for the sector.