HAS COVID-19 CLIPPED THE WINGS OF THE HIGH FLYING MICRO, SMALL, AND MEDIUM- SIZED ENTERPRISES (MSMEs) SECTOR? AN OPINION SURVEY

Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has halted the shivering progress of the Indian economy. In recent times the Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) sector is on the verge of becoming lame due to the COVID-19 outbreak. MSMEs primarily drive the socio-economic growth in our country. Still, because they typically have inadequate financial and management resources compared to big enterprises and are not prepared to deal with problems that are likely to be more severe than anticipated, they are worst hit by the COVID-19 outbreak. So, this paper aims to obtain the perception of selected MSMEs respondents to examine the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis on MSMEs and provide policy recommendations to the concerned policymakers to help MSMEs manage the situation. A strategically constructed questionnaire was designed in the form of an online survey to obtain respondents' opinions. The descriptive statistical analysis and "Chi-square non-parametric test" were carried out to analyze the gathered data. The study found that most of the MSMEs were either fully or partially in operation during the COVID-19 lockdown due to the enterprises belonging to essential services, employees working from home, etc. The increased difficulty in financing and reduction of orders were the most relevant issues faced by MSMEs. The study also found out that due to Covid-19 lockdown, MSMEs not belonging to essential services had to lay off their employees to the extent that led to unemployment. Finally, to alleviate the negative impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on MSMEs, the study mentions that the most relevant relief measure announced by the government was "government to clean all receivables due to MSMEs in next 45 days".