New Delhi, Oct 5 (KNN) The Credit Linked Capital Subsidy Scheme (CLCSS) of the Government to encourage technology upgradation of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) will continue to be implemented, Dr. Arun Panda, Secretary, Ministry of MSME clarified during an interaction with MSME associations recently.

Under the scheme eligible MSMEs are provided subsidy of up to Rs. 15 lakhs for procuring state of the art technology and also to improve energy efficiency and minimise environmental impacts.

However, for quite some time the scheme is a suspended animation mode and entrepreneurs who has taken up modernisation projects leveraging the support available under the scheme are quite distraught. Even the applications submitted about 2 year back are still to be sanctioned.

What is more pathetic, neither the entrepreneurs nor the Banks know whether the scheme will continue further or not. In many cases Banks are refusing to accept applications under the scheme.

Commenting on the situation S P Gupta, a noted expert on MSME finance mentioned that Government should not keep such important schemes in such an ambiguity.

Gupta hopes that the announcement made by the Secretary will be followed by an appropriate public notice by the Ministry of MSME regarding continuation of the scheme.

Under the CLCSS scheme micro and small enterprise adopting specified technologies towards enhancing process efficiencies are provided with subsidy of 15% of the project costs.

At present the subsidy amount has been capped at Rs. 15 lakhs and the project must be appraised by a bank, to be eligible.

Since it’s nearly two decades of existence, the scheme became quite popular with MSMEs to take up process upgradation with reduced upfront costs. The MSME fraternity is hopeful that the scheme will be upgraded to include larger projects and the process of subsidy release would further get streamlined. (KNN / DB)