India has long been home to millions of skilled micro-processors making distinctive local products. What many of them lacked was affordable finance, modern technology, quality certification and a way into organised markets

When the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted lives and livelihoods in 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi recognised that recovery had to reach beyond large industry. It had to reach the smallest producers and enterprises, especially those working in India’s villages and small towns.

The Pradhan Mantri Formalisation of Micro Food Processing Enterprises Scheme was launched that year under the Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan with this purpose. It began with a part of the food economy that had long remained outside formal finance and institutional support: the micro-processor already producing, selling and employing a few people, but without the capital or guidance needed to grow. The scheme reflected a conviction the Prime Minister has consistently held, that India’s growth must begin at its base, among people willing to build enterprises of their own.

The credit-linked component of PMFME has now crossed two lakh sanctions. The milestone matters because of the people behind it, entrepreneurs who have entered the formal credit system and secured a real chance to build. It is an achievement worth celebrating, and a moment to honour those who made it possible.

The first of them was Jamnalal Patidar, whose application was the very first sanctioned under PMFME. A tenth-pass entrepreneur with no background in food........

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