Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Udyog Uday Yojana: Assistance for Quality Certification

What is the Quality Certification component of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Udyog Uday Yojana?

Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Udyog Uday Yojana is the Gujarat Government's dedicated MSME assistance package for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe entrepreneurs, notified by the Industries and Mines Department through Government Resolution No. SSI/102020/332376/Ch dated 1 September 2020 under the Gujarat Industrial Policy 2020. The scheme, whose transliterated name is often written as "Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Udhyog Uday Yojna", bundles capital and interest subsidy with a set of smaller, targeted supports. Assistance for Quality Certification is Scheme 3 in that resolution.

Quality Certification assistance exists because certification is a hard cost with a slow payback. A small unit in Rajkot or Morbi that wants to sell into tenders, exports or organised retail is usually asked for a BIS mark, a WHO-GMP certificate or a hallmarking approval. The fee to the certifying body is only half the problem; the bigger bill is the testing instruments the certifying body insists the factory installs. The scheme addresses both.

According to the resolution, the manufacturing sector is eligible for 60% of the fee payable for national or international certification; BIS, ISI, WHO-GMP, Hallmark and other national or international certification, and 60% of the cost of testing equipment and machinery required for that certification, totalling up to a maximum of Rs 10 lakh. The cost of the certificate is defined to include fees charged by the certification agency, excluding travel, hotel and surveillance charges, the cost of testing equipment or machinery required for certification, and calibration charges of that equipment.

The State Government runs a matching component for all MSMEs under the Aatmanirbhar Gujarat Scheme (Resolution No. MIS-102022-1271(1)-I(Ch) dated 5 October 2022), where the published draft guideline sets the rate at 50% with the same Rs 10 lakh ceiling and adds detailed operating conditions. Those conditions are the practical rulebook officers apply, so they are worth reading alongside the SC/ST resolution.

Who is eligible for quality certification assistance?

You can claim it if:

• You are a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe entrepreneur, or your company, LLP or partnership has 51% or more SC/ST shareholding.
• Your enterprise meets the micro, small or medium definition under the MSMED Act 2006 and holds a Udyam registration or Udyog Aadhaar Memorandum acknowledgement, or DPIIT registration where relevant.
• Your enterprise is in manufacturing and located in Gujarat.
• You have obtained a BIS, ISI, WHO-GMP, Hallmark or other national or international certificate from a notified certification body.
• You are applying within one year of the date the certificate was issued.

You are not eligible, and cannot apply, if:

• The certificate is one you are statutorily required to hold. Certification demanded by an act or rule of the Government of India is excluded.
• You are claiming a renewal. Renewal expenditure is expressly ineligible.
• The testing equipment was bought after the certificate was issued. Only equipment purchased before issuance counts.
• You run a trading or service business. Both are excluded from this component.
• You paid the certification agency in cash. Cash payments are not recognised as eligible expenditure under the guideline.
• The certifying agency is not a notified body for the product or standard in question.
• You have already been reimbursed for the same expenditure under another State Government scheme. Central assistance may be combined, but combined State and Central support can never exceed the actual expenditure incurred.

What documents are required?

How to apply for quality certification assistance

1. Obtain the certificate first. Assistance is a reimbursement, so the certificate must already be in hand, and every claimed expense must have been incurred before the certificate was issued.
2. Gather the paper trail; agency invoices, proof of non-cash payment, equipment invoices and calibration bills.
3. Register or sign in on the Investor Facilitation Portal at ifp.gujarat.gov.in using the enterprise PAN and Udyam number.
4. File the Common Incentive Form, select the SC/ST entrepreneur scheme, and choose the Quality Certification component. File a separate application for each certificate.
5. Upload the annexures and submit, saving the application number shown on screen.
6. Send the hard copy with self-certified annexures to the MSME Commissioner's office, Udyog Bhavan, Sector 11, Gandhinagar 382017. The guideline for the equivalent MSME component allows offline submission at that office until the online module is live.
7. Answer verification queries. The office verifies the certificate directly with the issuing agency by online check, email or letter before sanction.

How is the claim verified and paid?

Verification under this component is unusually document-heavy because the equipment element invites disputes. The guideline for the sibling MSME scheme sets out the sequence officers follow: the certificate is confirmed with the issuing body; the equipment list is checked against what the certifying body required; for WHO-GMP claims the audit document or relevant act is used to establish the equipment list, and where that is silent the FDCA office's opinion is taken; and where the certifying organisation has neither recommended equipment nor published a list, a notarised affidavit is obtained from the applicant and a third-party or research-institute opinion may be sought.

Sanction and disbursement for Scheme 3 sit with the MSME Commissioner's office under the resolution's sanction table, and payment is released as reimbursement against the sanctioned grant of the financial year.

How do you check your application status?

1. Sign in to ifp.gujarat.gov.in with the login used to file.
2. Open the incentives dashboard and search by application number.
3. Note the stage displayed — submitted, scrutiny, query, sanctioned, disbursed.
4. If verification with the certifying body is holding the file, chase the MSME Commissioner's office on +91 79 23252619 quoting the application number.

Why quality certification claims get rejected

• Statutory certificate claimed. Officers check whether the certificate is legally compulsory before anything else.
• Renewal dressed up as fresh certification. The certificate number and first-issue date give this away immediately.
• Equipment bought after the certificate date. Invoice dates are compared with the certificate date line by line.
• Cash payments to the certification agency, which cannot be counted.
• Non-notified certifying agency for the product or standard claimed.
• Filed late, beyond one year from the certificate date.
• Travel, hotel or surveillance charges included in the claim, which are struck out.

Where to get help

• MSME Commissionerate / Industries Commissionerate, Udyog Bhavan, Sector 11, Gandhinagar 382017 to +91 79 23252619, +91 79 23252689, +91 79 23252682.
• Email: icim@gujarat.gov.in, icioim@gujarat.gov.in.
• Your District Industries Centre for help with Udyam registration and portal filing.
• Grievance module on ifp.gujarat.gov.in for written complaints about delay.

Applying is free. No official charges a fee to accept an application, and no consultant can promise a sanction.