List of businesses that come under the MSME sector

The Indian MSME sector contributes almost 30% to the country’s GDP, 45% of the manufacturing output, and around 48% of the country’s exports. It is indeed the backbone of the Indian economy and is a major employment generator with more than 11 crore people employed in the MSME sector. The list of businesses that come under MSMEs have crossed 65 million, with a new classification of MSMEs that’s based on annual turnover and investment in plant and machinery.

As per the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development (MSMED) Act of 2006 definition, all enterprises in the manufacturing and service categories were considered as MSMEs. The aim of this classification was to help businesses avail various government benefits and get access to multiple government schemes and promotions.

On 2 July 2021, Union Minister, Nitin Gadkari, through an amendment announcement, revised the definition for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises. Under the new definition, both wholesalers and retailers are brought in under the classification of MSMEs. Therefore, all the benefits that were earlier open to MSMEs are now open to wholesalers and retailers as well. There are about 2.5 crore wholesale and retail traders who are expected to benefit from this amendment since the government decided to reinstate them as MSMEs.

New definition of MSME based on investment amount and turnover of the enterprise
Category	Investment limit (in ₹)	Turnover limit (in ₹)
Micro	1 Crore	5 Crore
Small	10 Crore	50 Crore
Medium	50 Crore	250 Crore

While there are multiple businesses including service businesses, manufacturing, and trading business in India, the government has a specific list of businesses that are considered as MSME. This article will talk about the businesses that comes under MSME, types of MSMEs in India and the complete list of micro enterprises in India.

Which are the sectors that come under MSME?

As per the government circular, ‘all business activities – services and manufacturing are covered in MSME sector’ as long as they meet the investment and turnover criteria mentioned above. However, there could be certain exceptions to this. Broadly speaking, MSME businesses fall under two categories:

• Manufacturing business activities: MSME businesses that are in the manufacturing space – that is, they produce finished goods from raw materials, contribute to 45% of the total manufacturing output and 40% of total exports. With the popularity of the ‘Made in India’ campaign the numbers are already growing.
• Service sector business activities: According to data in the Udyam portal, MSMEs in the service sector comprise a larger proportion as compared to those MSMEs in the manufacturing sector. Though the benefits of Udyam MSME registration are applicable to both, Indian entrepreneurs have registered 8.65 lakh enterprises under the service sector as compared to over 5.37 lakh enterprises under the manufacturing category.

What are the businesses that come under MSME?

List of businesses that comes under MSME include the following:

1. Leather products
2. Moulding of products like combs, umbrella frames, plastic toys, etc.
3. Natural fragrance and flavours
4. Placement and management consultancy services
5. Training and educational institute
6. Energy efficient pumps
7. Xeroxing
8. Beauty parlour and crèches.
9. Auto repair services, and garages.
10. X-ray clinics
11. Equipment rental and leasing
12. Photographic lab
13. Servicing of agricultural farm equipment including tractor, pump repairing, ring boring machine
14. Back-office operation relating to computerised data
15. STD/ISD booths
16. Retail trade with low capital
17. Multi channels dish cable TV With dish antenna
18. Laundry and dry cleaning
19. Toughened metallic ware
20. Automotive electronic component products
21. Electronic surveillance and security
22. Mechanical engineering like steel almirahs, cocks, and valves, wire cutters, etc.
23. Engineering and fabrication
24. Recorders, VCRs, radios, transformer, motors, watches
25. Micronutrients for plants
26. Active pharmaceutical ingredients and ayurvedic products
27. Khadi products and hosiery products
28. Handicraft activities like spinning, weaving, artisans
29. Printing and other products made of paper
30. Coir industry
31. Furniture and wood products
32. Poultry farm
33. Bicycle parts
34. Stationery items
35. Call centre
36. Rubber products
37. IT solutions like creating a server bank, application service provider, smart card customisation, etc.
38. Testing labs for industries
39. Auto parts components like horn buttons, door channels, wiper blade components, battery cell tester
40. Ceramics and glass products include roofing tiles, glass flooring tiles, granite, etc.
41. Retail and wholesale business

You can visit the official Udyam portal website for more information on the businesses considered as MSME.

What is a NIC Code?

If your business falls under any of the categories mentioned in the list above, you can get your business registered and benefit from the Udyam portal. To register your business under MSME segment you need an NIC code. Let us understand what NIC Code is.

A must-have when filing your company’s registration, the National Industrial Classification Code (NIC) refers to a code that is used for Udyog Aadhaar registration. This can be in the form of a 2 to 3 digit number. While the 2 to 3 digit code represents the group of business activities, the 4 digit code represents a class of business activity and the 5 digit code represents a subclass of the business activity.

What are the businesses that do not fall under MSME?

As discussed above, not all businesses come under the purview of MSMEs. The MSME Ministry has listed that the organisations that are not directly dealing with manufacturing of goods or are offering services will not come under MSME. This is because the main aim of MSME is to provide support to emerging businesses with benefits and subsidies. Accordingly, the following activities are not covered under MSMED Act, 2006:

• Gambling and betting activities
• Forestry and logging
• Fishing and aquaculture
• Trade/repair of motorcycles (wholesale and retail)
• Retail trade except of vehicles and motorcycles
• Activities of households for domestic personnel
• Goods and services produced via private households for personal use
• Activities of extraterritorial organisation and bodies

To sum up: How to take your business to the next level

The classification of businesses under MSME has helped businesses avail various government benefits and get access to multiple government loans and financing schemes and promotions. There are several collateral free loans that MSMEs can avail to grow their business that includes MUDRA Loan under PMMY, Stand-Up India Scheme, Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE), etc.

In case you need assistance to take your MSME business to the next level or find growth opportunities, register your business on Tata nexarc – a B2B growth platform to enable emerging businesses in India find new opportunities to grow their business seamlessly.