The government also waived off the minimum power demand charges for MSMEs during the months of April, May, and June. (Representational)
The Andhra Pradesh government on Saturday announced a financial aid package of Rs 1,100 crore for the state’s Micro, Medium and Small Enterprises (MSMEs) sector, which has drawn to a virtual standstill for nearly two months since the beginning of the nationwide Covid-driven lockdown.
Named as the ‘Restart Package’, the government released its first installment of Rs 450 crore on Saturday. It said the aid package is expected to benefit 98,000 units which employ more than 10 lakh people.
The government also waived off the minimum power demand charges for MSMEs during the months of April, May, and June. According to officials, the move is expected to benefit over 72,531 micro-enterprises, 24,252 small and 645 medium scale industries.
The government is also planning to provide Rs 200 crore as investment capital by providing loans at very low interest rates to MSMEs. Under the plan, to help the MSME sector revive quickly, the state government will allocate Rs 200 crore as investment capital by providing loans in partnership with SIDBI at a low-interest rate.
Speaking to the media, Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy said that despite the deep financial crisis the state is facing, the government was giving a boost to the MSMEs.
He claimed that the previous government did not pay industrial incentives worth nearly Rs 828 crore between 2014-2019.
The Chief Minister further announced that the state government has identified around 360 items to be purchased from MSMEs and all those payments will be cleared in a period of 45 days.
Of the total purchases, almost 25 percent are to be done from micro and small enterprises, four percent from enterprises run by members of the SC/ST community, and three percent from enterprises run by women.
The CM also instructed district collectors to lay special focus on the MSME segment and assign a Joint Collector exclusively for the sector’s development.