Mumbai, Mar 20 (KNN) As Lok Sabha elections are around the corner, Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) are eyeing at the new government with high expectations.

With regard to their expectations from the new government, KNN India spoke to President of Bombay Small Scale Industries Association (BSSIA) Bankim D. Mistry, who is also a post graduate from Indian Institute of Technology Mumbai.

Sharing the list of expectations, Mistry stressed on the need of having good and corruption free system seeing the present scenario.

For the MSME sector, he said ministry has hardly done anything practically. The Goods and Service Tax (GST) rates are even higher than the percentage of MSME earnings.

He asserted that 18% and 28% of Integrated Goods and Service Tax (IGST) which is not refunded within more than 6 months troubles MSMEs and most of them are now not interested in exporting goods.

Besides this, survival of the MSMEs have become difficult because of the tough business environment due to corruption in the country, Mistry pointed.

He stated that corruption is so high in exports that SMEs cannot survive.

Talking about the new government that will come into power after elections, he said “whoever comes in the power, Ministers keep on changing but development commissioner, assistant directors and joint secretaries remains the same and we are dependent on them.”

When we want something as a trade association or NGO, we directly write to development commissioner not ministers. For small issues we can’t ask ministers to intervene rather we ask the commercial managers of the government to look into the matter as they can handle it better, he added.

MSME sector has been neglected by so many ministers for so many years. They are not all bothered about the MSME problems and challenges, said President of BSSIA.

He further mentioned that communication between the departments is very poor because of which MSMEs get affected.

Commenting over the corruption, he said that time has come that we come out from this culture. There is an urgent need of an hour that India become corruption free country.

Mistry pointed “A person should know that selling a vote for Rs 500 or Rs 2000 is bad, instead ask what you want from government.”

Mistry asked for reduced corruption from the new government as he believes that once corruption goes down, taxation will automatically go down and public facilities will increase. (KNN/YV)