Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday reviewed the situation related to the outstanding dues of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) with CPSEs and central government agencies. Debashish Panda, Secretary in the Department of Finance Services, MSME Secretary AK Sharma, and other senior officials attended the meeting. Under the Self-Determined India Package announced in May this year, central agencies and central government public sector undertakings (CPSEs) were to be repaid within 45 days if they had any dues of MSMEs companies.
"From May 2020, the Government of India and the Ministry of MSME have made regular follow-up and concerted efforts to clear dues," an official statement said. Special attention was paid to central public sector undertakings and central government agencies for payment of dues to MSMEs.
This statement said that central government agencies and CPSEs have paid dues of more than Rs 21,000 crore to MSMEs in the last seven months.
A statement issued by the MSME ministry said that the highest purchases of Rs 5,100 crore were made in October and Rs 4,100 crore was paid.
In the first 10 days of November, Rs 4,700 crore was purchased and about Rs, 4,000 crores were paid. According to the statement, in this way in November, one can get better performance on this front as per October.
In this statement, it has been said that the Secretary of the Department of MSME wrote several times to the ministers and CPSEs of the Government of India in this context and also spoke at a private level. Apart from this, the PMO and the cabinet secretary also tried this.