Govt's economic package won't help MSMEs: Mah former CM

Mumbai, May 26 (KNN) Slamming centre over their poor economic policy amid COVID-19 crisis, the former Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan has said the package announced by the Union government won't help Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), especially micro enterprises.

Considering the impact of successive lockdowns on the economy, Chavan suggested a fresh Union budget needs to be presented in the next session of Parliament.

“India has 6.34 crore MSMEs, out of which 6.3 crore are micro enterprises. Out of 11.09 crore workers in MSMEs, around 10.76 crore are employed in micro businesses,” Chavan pointed out during a press conference on Monday.

Another 3.31 lakh units were small enterprises. Only 50,000 or 0.08 per cent of all registered MSMEs were medium enterprises, he said.

Sharpening his offensive against the Narendra Modi led centre government, Chavan said that as per the Union Finance Minister’s announcement, enterprises with a turnover of around Rs 100 crore, and borrower accounts with outstanding credit of up to Rs 25 crore on February 29, 2020, will get a loan up to 20% of the outstanding amount.

“Which micro enterprise has a turnover of Rs 100 crore? The announcement essentially means that these 6.3 crore micro enterprises and 10.76 crore workers are automatically negated from the package,” he added.

The former Chief Minister also said that he had welcomed the Prime Minister’s economic package announcement worth Rs 21 lakh crore adding that ‘’once the Finance Minister shared the details, it was clear the package was nothing but another jumla.’’

‘’India needs a stimulus package at this stage, not another jumla,” he avowed.