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Govt frees movement of goods; assures RBI directive will be followed by all banks

Updated: Mar 28, 2020 02:21:25pm
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Govt frees movement of goods; assures RBI directive will be followed by all banks

New Delhi, Mar 28 ( KNN) To deal with COVID-19 crisis, Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal held a meeting with top industry associations through Video Conferencing today.

"Government has issued instructions there is no need to distinguish between 'essential' and 'non-essential' goods allowing free movement of all types of goods",  Minister told stakeholders while reacting to about freeze on movement of goods across the country following un-precedented lockdown and harassment of truckers in most of the states. 

Besides the Ministers of State for Commerce and Industries and of Shipping,  all senior officials of the Commerce Ministry were present in the meeting along with industry associations namely CII, FICCI, ASSOCHAM, FISME, NASSCOM, SIAM, LBU, ACMA among others.

Representatives of associations raised concern of recent RBI directives announced with Monetary Policy that these directives have left the decision to provide exemptions to the Banks and that different Banks have taken different positions on payments of EMI and NPA norms etc.   

Piyush Goyal assured unequivocally that people should not have any doubt that all banks- whether public or private, will follow the directives of the RBI and extend the benefits announced.

The foremost concerns of Associations for which they demanded intervention of the government related to payment of salaries and wages and payment of Provident Fund and ESI contribution of workers during period of lockdown. 

Other concerns included inability of industries in meeting various deadlines of statutory payments like of GST, Income Tax  House Tax etc  and it was demanded that last dates should extended to June.  

FISME also demanded that automatic extension be given to all contractual obligations for supply of goods and services.  

It also raised the issue of suspension of detention and demurrage at ports during lockdown. (KNN Bureau)

COMMENTS

  1. Aditya Shukla
    Aditya Shukla 28/03/2020 8:30 PM

    Much needed step

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