What struck me most is the fact that even the best government initiatives end up in the spam if we don't participate in its execution. The ongoing census of MSMEs that started on May 12 is a case in point, with most enterprises unaware that such a census was underway.

Now, the benefits of the census are very impressive. The census will go a long way to not only gauge how MSMEs are functioning, but also to help the authorities in formulating future schemes and initiatives for their betterment.

And what's more! The census can indeed tell us the number of MSME units operating in the country, their production status, extent of sickness, clustering parameters, and how much they are contributing to the economy and what their share in the GDP of the country is.

However, after days of data collection, one gets the feeling that the MSME Ministry is not getting enough support from the MSMEs for whose benefit the census is being conducted.

In the first place, news of the census never reached the MSMEs despite an extensive media campaign, mostly because the enterprises didn't bother to know its advantages.

Secondly, the enterprises fear that the ministry will leak out this information to other departments, which in actuality is not the case. The information collected in the census is kept confidential and used for statistical purposes alone.

MSME Ministry sources even tell me that MSME-holders in many cases don't give the correct information, besides that, they don't have time to fill the form. Yes, I agree that it takes a little time, but believe me it's time well invested.

One can even approach the state authorities directly and contact their concerned district departments like District Industry Center (DIC) and Directorate of Industries (DI) to get their enterprise registered.

So let's co-operate with the authorities and make this census a successful one.