New Delhi, Sep 30 (KNN) After Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman fixed October 15 as the deadline for central Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) to clear overdue payments to MSME vendors and exhorted them to front-load capital expenditure, the experts opine that monitoring is a must to ensure the payments are done.

Talking to KNN India, a Lucknow based MSME entrepreneur VK Aggrawal hailed the announcement made by the Finance Minister and said this move will give some relief to Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME).

Aggarwal, who is also a former president of Indian Industries Association (IIA) and Federation of Micro and Small & Medium Enterprises (FISME) said that monitoring is must to keep a watch that what is being done and what else can be done.

Aggrawal said, ''Definitely, the MSMEs will get some relief from this move. If the sector gets even half the amount stuck with the Public Sector Units (PSUs), it will still be a great relief for them.”

The PSUs should be asked to provide the data by March 31 that up to what amount has been cleared by October 15 from their end.

''No matter what date has been given to perform these tasks of clearing dues to vendors or MSMEs, the most significant thing is that government also need to monitor them rather than only announcing dates,'' he said stressing on monitoring the process.

The entrepreneur, meanwhile, wondered that how will this process work, whether the PSUs will clarify this themselves or they will be reminded by the Finance Ministry.

On the benefits of ''MSME Samadhan'' portal, he said ''Not much, I personally used it recently four to five months back. What this portal also needs monitoring then it should be seen that what affects it makes after six months. So monitoring is very important.''

On Saturday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who reviewed capital spending programmes with heads of central public sector enterprises, said state-owned companies have also been asked to set up a portal by October 15 where service providers, vendors and contractors can track bills and payments so that liquidity crunch is mitigated. (KNN/ AK)

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