Bangalore, July 12 (KNN) The Karnataka Government is taking initiatives to bridge the credit gap in the MSME sector. The Minister for State, Finance & Corporate Affairs of Karnataka, Arjun Mehwal, assured the MSME sector to take up the issues of Non- Performing Asset (NPA) norms and online loan applications with the concerned departments.

Laghu Udyog  Bharati (LUB) Karnataka, recently organized  a one day Zonal Conference of southern states on ‘ Credit flow to micro , small and medium  enterprises’ here.

This conference aimed to bridge the gaps between the entrepreneurs and the Finance and Corporate Affairs Ministry via healthy discussions between both these entities.

Meghwal, in his address, assured to extend all his support to the SMEs in the southern zone. He also invited  the entrepreneurs to straightaway approach him in case of grave problems and issues which need to be taken to the higher authorities and the central government if need be.

He also assured the entrepreneurs to take forward two major issues concerning the sector to the centre namely the NPA norms and the online application for availing credit facilities from banks for seamless credit availability.

Srikhant Dutta , VP of LUB,  in his keynote address highlighted the challenges faced by the SMEs in the region.

He said, “MSMEs which tend to be the backbone of economic activity of our nation contributing to nearly 45% of the industrial output currently faces many challenges like credit crunches, high interest rates, lack of appropriate knowledge about the government schemes , administrative hiccups etc.”

“A huge delay in receipt of payments from PSUs and the government departments taking minimum 1-4 months to come into the hands of SMEs leaves them short of funds to pay service taxes, VAT , contribute to EPFs   etc,” he added.

Talking to KNN , Priya Puranik , Secretary, LUB, said, “The Meghwal assured to extend all his support to the SMEs and the female entrepreneurs in the state.”

Puranik said that the Minister also agreed to industry view on having atleast one female board member in the public associations, departments and forums these days to enable easy access to female entrepreneurs to these offices.

Anand Chandra Sahu, GM of SIDBI, in his address, emphasized on the importance of SMES and gave an overview of various government initiatives implemented through SIDBI, NABARD and various other banks like Startup India, Standupmithra.in.

He also mentioned that the aim of all such initiatives is to bridge the gaps and make finance “affordable, available and accessible”.   

Ravindra Bhandari, GM at Canara Bank said the entrepreneurs can approach the bank to get their credit issues resolved with the banks and made a vivid statement saying, “there is no dearth of finance and banks are meant to serve industrialists to the best of their abilities.” (KNN/ GK)