Budget 2026: MSMEs expect solution to frictions, not more schemes
As India charts its long journey towards developed-nation status by 2047, the Union Budget has ceased to be a routine fiscal exercise. It is now asked to reconcile near-term constraints with long-term structural change. At the centre of this task sits the micro, small and medium enterprise sector, no longer content to be described as the economy’s backbone and increasingly expected to function as its growth engine.
This will be the first budget after the formal articulation of the Viksit Bharat vision, and one of 22 budgets that must steadily align policy tools with that objective. MSMEs are not asking for more schemes. They are asking for predictability, competitiveness, and an ecosystem that allows them to scale and integrate into global value chains.