LAHORE: The Small Medium Enterprise Development Authority (SMEDA) has excluded non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and all government organisations from availing an organisational grant (OG) under its new project.
The authority’s staff, blood relatives and spouses have also been excluded from the list of beneficiaries of OG that has been given under the project of the National Business Development Programme (NBDP), Pakistan Today has learnt.
The focus of the OD is to improve managerial efficiency and organizational systems of SMEs by offering support to acquire services in the areas such as accounting manuals, software, financial management and general management etc.
The grant size will be 80pc of the total cost of service, up to maximum of Rs500,000.
The grants will be given on reimbursement basis and no advance payment will be made under the grant, while the payment to guarantee will be made through banking transactions.
The SMEDA has also prepared the criteria for improving the SMEs’ internal capacities in five core areas i.e. financial management, employee management, regulatory compliance, production management, and general business management.
According to an official document, under the financial service category the SME must have the activities of accounting, bookkeeping, accounting software ERP systems, manuals for financial controls and management, and product costing.
Similarly, under the general management category the SME must have the activities of task management, project management, contract management and procurement system, while the SME also have the activities of inventory, warehousing system including software, supply chain management, worker and workplace safety manuals under the same category.
In production management area, the SME must have the activities of production planning and control, production management, whereas under the HR management category, the SME must have the activities of HR policies and procedures, time attendance management system, sales force management system, and employee internal training manuals.
However, in the category of regulatory services, the SME must have the activities of sales tax registration services, business licensing, business registration, copyright, trade mark, patent and design registration, import export procedure and others.
The document further states the OD grant will be given to only Pakistani nationals having a valid CNIC, and that the SME should have a total of 250 employees with a paid-up capital up to Rs25 million and annual sales up to Rs250 million.
Only manufacturing, services, trading, IT/ICT, mining and mineral processing, and agriculture processing areas would be able to get the grant, whereas the SMEs of Balochistan may also apply for livestock and dairy farming.
For getting the OD grant, the SME must have a valid NTN and operational business for at least one year from the date of the application of grant, the document further states.
“We have launched NBDP across the country and to achieve the objectives of this programme, the provisions of grants to SMEs for small business startup, organizational development, marketing, research and development, product testing, certifications and credit worthiness assessment have been incorporated in it,” a SMEDA official said.
The business development programme also aimed to promote youth entrepreneurship by supporting business incubation centers, he said, adding the programme was also focusing on the provision of Over the Counter (OTC) products such as feasibility studies, information briefs pertinent to business management, sector studies, commercial contracts, legal templates and regulatory procedures.
