MSME ‘Champions’ Portal Integrates the Power of Artificial Intelligence

The Ministry of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises introduced the IT tools of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to provide assistance and solutions to the issues of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). The Ministry implemented AI and ML tools in its single-window system portal, ‘Champions’, to obtain insights into MSME-related grievances and issues for their quick and effective resolution.

The technology company, Intel is the partner of the Ministry for implementing AI and ML tools. Intel has implemented the entire domain of AI and ML in the Champions portal free-of-cost. The whole concept, scope analysis, and design are done in-house within the Ministry with the help of the National Informatics Centre (NIC) and under the guidance of a local team of Intel.

AI refers to the idea of making machines capable of thinking, learning, and acting like humans. It enables the machines to learn, adapt, and do operations that ‘Rule-based (MIS) Automations’ cannot do. It gives social media insights to the Ministry that are related to MSMEs for its policy action through Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Forums, and Online News, which was not available before. 

Further, AI will enable the Ministry to know the emotions of the stakeholders and people involved or dependent on MSME sector in real-time. AI helps the Ministry understand the issues of MSMEs in real-time, including information, sentiment, and intelligence analysis based on widely available social media and online data. 

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The AI tool gives data-driven insights which are easy to understand. This tool can slice and dice data in many ways which are unavailable in traditional tools of Information Management Systems, which will allow even ordinary staff to discover actionable insights. 

There can be easy sharing of data analytics in the form of real-time live data links with the teams at the Central (Hub) level and the handles of ‘Champions’ Control Room, which is present across the country. Starting now, AI will do the tedious work of preparing data for analysis, thus, providing free time to the human resource to engage in more productive work.

The Ministry stated that they have started enabling and optimising their ‘Champions’ portal with AI and Analytics technology for deriving insights. It also revealed that the next phase is relatively easy and the trial is on for it. The direction of the second phase is towards real-time grievance redressal and management. 

The second phase is said to aim at increasing the performance of the control rooms and officials through AI-enabled Chat Bots to get a faster response for the query of the portal users. It also includes obtaining detailed real-time analytics across the entire workflow of the portal. It also facilitates to get real-time data analytics for grievance redressal through ‘Champions’ portal for efficient resolution and greater stakeholder satisfaction. 

The COVID-19 has hit the MSME sector hard. The Ministry is whole-heartedly supporting the MSMEs in this challenging situation. They are trying to convert this crisis into an opportunity with futuristic interventions. The Ministry is helping the MSMEs to manufacture essential and enabling products, such as sensors, motors, computer displays, and other animation technologies. 

The Ministry is working towards taking the nation and the MSMEs in the direction of Industry 4.0. Through the portal, the Ministry is not only working towards adopting technologies categorised as part of Industry 4.0 but also encouraging MSMEs to adopt the same.

For any clarifications/feedback on the topic, please contact the writer at

mayashree.acharya@cleartax.in