New Delhi, July 12 (KNN) In a bid to address the concerns of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) under the newly implemented Goods and Services Tax (GST), the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) and Federation of Indian Micro and Small & Medium Enterprises (FISME) launched a helpline and a web portal last week.

In the first week of the launch itself the helpline have received more than 200 calls from MSMEs with queries relating to the different nuances under the GST.

Giving insights into the nature of queries, Secretary General of FISME, Anil Bhardwaj, said that majority of queries are related to GST registration. 

He informed that the sector being extensively diverse, nature of queries also vary.

He further said that there have been instances where the entrepreneur isn’t able to access the official GST portal in the search engines and they end up visiting third party sites because they appear on the top of the Google search page.

Also many MSMEs are finding difficulty in locating the tax rate on their item as the HSN name and the product name in general language is different.

Bhardwaj said there have been many conceptual queries with regard to the placement of products under different tax slabs in the GST. For instance detergent cake and detergent powder despite being made from same components, they are placed under different slabs.

The GST helpline as well as the portal attempts to  assist the MSMEs right from basic registration to clearing confusions relating to the operational as well as conceptual nuances of the GST.

Since the helpline offers services in simple language, the success rate in answering the queries is high. Also an answer to the query raised during the telephonic conversation is put online to help others with similar queries.

SIDBI in association with FISMI launched the 360 degree GST support system for MSMEs. This included a helpline number, web portal and a handbook. (KNN/ DA)