pune a survey of urban nano enterprises with an annual turnover between rs 10 lakh and rs one crore conducted by gokhale institute of politics and economics gipe highlighted the struggles and challenges faced by the service sector in pune the report has findings of over 500 nano enterprises including grocers boutiques catering and food stalls bakeries salons pharmacies auto repair shops and retail outlets despite being located in tier1 cities like punethey encountered significant obstacles such as difficulty in hiring and retaining skilled workers marketing challenges and limited technology adoption due to lack of trainingthough pune has the highest number of udyam registered micro businesses in india they faced several challenges the report said it elaborated on the need to form business affinity groups to reduce the disconnect between nano entrepreneurs and the system the survey was conducted by deasra centre of excellence in nano entrepreneurship at centre for excellence in entrepreneurship development ceed lalitagauri kulkarni director of ceed said the lower income selfemployed and rural or semirural segment were served by selfhelp groups and microfinance networks while the upper segment of the microenterprise sector goes to banks and the financial system under the msme label however despite their struggles to survive and grow voices of midtier microentrepreneurs are seldom heard this lack of attention is due to the perception that they are too urban centrally located and nonpoor which makes them less vulnerable and thus less likely to attract a policy focus she addedthe survey results said that a majority of the business owners started by borrowing from friends and family as a primary source of finance selffunding including informal finance was prevalent in all business segments regardless of gender education or age neeta a small food stall owner in deccan gymkhana surveyed by the ceed team had applied for a loan to expand her business but her rented premises lack of credit history inadequate accounting and absence of collateral in getting a loan became a challenge she now plans to borrow from informal sources despite banks and microlending nbfcs having special schemes for womenowned enterprises she said in this mode it was easy to obtain funds and offered flexibility of repayment termskulkarni added our study shows the need for a fundamental shift in the way that researchers government officials and ecosystem enablers approach the nano enterprise sector by altering the narrative the market positioning can make them key partners the report details the need for effective utilization of existing government programmes it discussed oneyear fellowships for skilled youth to train and mentor nano business owners in specific technical skills and strategiespradnya godbole chief executive officer of deasra foudation said that the challenges that nano businesses face validated by this study are what they saw while working with these enterprises policy makers and enablers need to be informed about these issues areas like access to funds markets should be looked at differently from msmes there is a need to classify a separate distinction to nano enterprises so