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Gujarat mining PSU GMDC tweaks its customer segmentation process to support MSMEs


Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: GMDC said it has collected Udyam certificates from its customers for mapping of business units to their respective MSME status.

Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: The Gujarat government’s mining public sector unit (PSU) Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation (GMDC), which is said to be the largest lignite seller in the country, on Wednesday announced segmenting its customers according to their MSME status (or turnover based). Earlier, the company segmented customers based on their ‘lignite lifting’ capacity. “Financial capability will be considered in revised customer segmentation,” the company said in a statement.

Lignite is often referred to as brown coal and is reportedly the lowest grade coal with the least carbon concentration. The coal is used by small scale enterprises as fuel for their production activities.

GMDC said it has collected Udyam certificates from its customers for mapping of business units to their respective MSME status. The new segmentation is in the direction to promote the growth and development of MSMEs, ensuring the existing price range and affording discounts to micro industries for facilitating the growth of the Indian economy, the company said. 

However, GMDC didn’t explain in the statement how the new segmentation method will lead to more benefits for MSMEs in comparison to the earlier method.

Comments from GMDC weren’t immediately available for this story. 

“We at GMDC value our MSME customers in textiles, chemicals, ceramics, and others. We are confident that this customer segmentation will help us to ensure customer satisfaction and support them in their long-term profitability and sustainability to achieve the vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat,” said Roopwant Singh, Managing Director, GMDC. 

The company in a notice issued to its lignite customers said the segmentation took effect from September 1, 2022. “GMDC has taken this decision based on overwhelming requests from customers, industry groups and government guidelines to promote MSMEs,” the notice read. 

In August this year, GMDC announced increasing its lignite production to 10 million tonnes this year to help MSMEs access cheaper fuel from 8.5 million tonnes last year. To enhance its production, the PSU had invited bids for its Surkha (North) Lignite mine in Bhavnagar from lignite mining contractors. “This will help minimize the constantly increasing demand-supply gap and cater for the energy requirements of the small businesses in the state,” Singh had said.