• Suruchi Chopra
• Abhilasha Sharma

MSME sector is seen as a huge potential for driving the growth story further in the Indian economy. It has been able to employ around 120 million people and contribute 45% of the exports of the country. Despite showing a robust growth rate of over 10% over the last 5 years, the MSME sector is beset with operational problems due to size and nature of business. RBI and government have taken various measures to improve the financing to the sector. One of such initiatives by the Reserve Bank of India is categorization of Specialized MSME Branches. Public sector banks have been advised to open at least one specialized branch in each district. Further, banks have been permitted to categorize their MSME general banking branches having 60% or more of their advances to MSME sector in order to encourage them to open more specialized MSME branches for providing better service to this sector as a whole. The specialized branches have been operational in the country for a long time, but how much they have been successful in fulfilling the government’s mandate of increasing the flow of credit to MSME sector is yet to be tested. The paper is an attempt to test the extent to which these branches have justified their objective. The basic purpose is to throw light upon the effectiveness of the functioning of specialized MSME branches of the Public Sector Banks and perform a comparative analysis with MSME handling in private sector banks and to recommend the changes required in their working model to increase their efficiency.

MSME, Specialized Branches, SBI, HDFC, Small Enterprises

"Effectiveness of Specialized MSME Branches: A Comparative Case Study", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 6, page no.674-684, June 2019, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1907981.pdf

"Effectiveness of Specialized MSME Branches: A Comparative Case Study", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 6, page no. pp674-684, June 2019, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1907981.pdf