SMEDA providing grants for organizational uplift

F.P. Report

ISLAMABAD: Small and Medium Enterprise Development Authority (SMEDA) has taken the initiative to provide Organizational Development (OD) grant of up to Rs 500,000 per to each organization on first come first served basis to promote and encourage SMEs sector of the country.

The SMEDA has already invited application for the OD grants from Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) all across the Pakistan, official source said adding that the interested enterprises had been requested to submit their applications by March 24.

The grant aims at improving SMEs internal capacities in five core areas including financial management, employee management, regulatory compliance, production management, and general business management.

SMEDA’s SME Grant Program offers funding to the eligible SMEs to pay for services of consultants or service providers, it added. The project is being executed under SMEDA’s National Business Development Program for SMEs (NBDP) programme across the country that offers different types of incentives to small and medium size businesses including provision of small grants, it said.

The focus of OD grant 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, resource planning, inventory management, regulatory compliance, human resource management, production planning, procurement planning, and general management.

The grants would  be processed on first come first serve basis in 07 (seven)regions of Pakistan namely Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Islamabad, Azad Jammu & Kashmir and GilgitBaltistan, according to the quotas allocated to each region based on Population Census 2017, grants will be awarded to the applicants securing minimum qualifying marks.