Mysuru, Nov 4 (KNN) The economic slowdown has affected all segments of industry among Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) across the country and around 20 lakh people have lost their jobs over the past two years, the Karnataka Small-Scale Industries Association (KASSIA) has said.

KASSIA President R Raju said at least 30% of SMEs have been shut down partially or completely.

The automobile sector downturn has led to an over 30-40% loss in business to SMEs supplying components to the sector.

Stating that due to wage policy the unemployment has been risen, as Micro and small scale industry owners cannot afford to pay Rs 15,000 to workers. He urged the Union government to cancel its policies on including SMEs under the wage policy.

Regarding Goods and Services Tax (GST) KASSIA urged the government to address issues such as relaxation in GST collection, making it quarterly below certain slabs, reduction of GST rates, and improvement in the GST grievance redressal mechanism, improvement in credit flow to SMEs, and reduction of real interest rates.

Later, he said that the Prime Minister’s initiative of providing loans through a 59-minute window online was found to be only on paper. It is hardly possible to access loans under this scheme as banks place hurdles after giving in-principle acceptance online.

The KASSIA members also spoke against shifting of SIDBI from Bengaluru to Hyderabad.

Raju further said that if the government does not make changes in the economic related policies, the recession period might continue for the rest one or two year and more workers would be unemployed.

Raju also demanded no to change the definition of MSME on the basis of turnover, rather it should be based on the land and machines.

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