Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announces interest equalization for MSMEs

New Delhi, Sep 14 (KNN) Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday announced the interest equalisation for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) to 5 per cent from 3 per cent.

Apart from this, she said for small procedural defaults, small tax payers would not be prosecuted and all communications with assesses will be through technology or complete faceless dealings.

As India's merchandise exports declining by 6.05 per cent to USD 26.13 billion in August compared to the year-ago month, Sitharaman also introduced RoDTEP – Remission Of Duties for Export Products – to replace the existing Merchandise Export From India (MEIS).

‘’RoDTEP will replace the existing incentive schemes and will more than adequately incentivise exporters than the existing schemes put together,’’ she told in a press conference.

Revenue foregone as a result of RoDTEP implementation would be Rs 50,000 crore, she added.

Sitharaman also said the PSU banks are transmitting rate cuts and on September 19, she will meet bank PSU heads on this and discuss credit flows and the progress on rolling out partial credit scheme for PSU banks for buying high rated NBFC asset pools.