MSME sector needs political attention

VELLORE: Still struggling to overcome the impact of Covid pandemic, Medium, Small and Micro Enterprises (MSME) sector wants political parties and their candidates to accept the demands of entrepreneurs and take steps accordingly to save the sector. Their major demands are ensuring credit flow, revoking penal interest on default of loan and setting up of a welfare board.

“Availability of credit is the major issue that is haunting the sector. Micro enterprises are denied credits by banks which prefer only those with huge turnover,” said MV Swamynatthan, general secretary for south zone, Federation of Associations of Small Industries of India (FASI). He added, “After the pandemic lockdown was eased, banks gave us loans without even taking our consent. They simply credited the loan amount into our accounts. The problem is most of the entrepreneurs are not able to repay. So, the banks are levying penal interest further increasing the burden.”

Moreover, certain banks are fleecing the loanees with inspection charges and renewal charges. GST payment is also giving a big headache to the small entrepreneurs. The constant changing of rules leaves them at the receiving end. If there is delay or default in paying the GST, the account is blocked making it inoperative.

Since 70 per cent of the enterprises have not fully recovered from the shock of the pandemic, they are not able to find money either to pay the bank loans or GST bills. Mounting power bills and increasing costs of raw materials also plague the sector. Swamynatthan demands, “The political parties and candidates should pay attention to the problems ailing the sector and make a commitment to address the issues and infuse fresh blood to save it.”

Setting up of a welfare board has been there for about seven years now, yet no concrete action has been taken by those at the helms of affairs. Entrepreneurs stress the need for creating a mechanism to listen to the grievances of the sector at the district level and resolve the issues raised, as in the lines of public grievance redressal held once in a week and the monthly grievance redressal meet for farmers. In Tamil Nadu, MSME accounts for 20 per cent of the total industrial units providing job for about 1.28 crore people.