New Delhi, May 14 (KNN) The Clothing Manufacturers Association of India (CMAI) has welcomed the measures announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

''The enhancing of the upper limits of the sector, the merging of the Manufacturing and Service Sectors, and the addition of a Turnover based criteria, will all go a long way in enabling many more enterprises, especially in the garment industry, to take advantage of the various schemes under the MSME umbrella,'' said CMAI.

CMAI said that the additional loans backed by government guarantee and requiring no collateral or Guarantee of the MSME, will enable many of our members to get the much-needed working capital assistance that the Industry needs to kick start operations after the lock-down ends.

''However, it is important that the Banks respond to these measures and implement the loan scheme within 4-5 weeks to allow quick start to operations to help the economic growth in the country,'' it added.

Since a majority of the Garment Manufacturing units would come under the MSME criteria, we believe these sets of measures would be a boost for our sector, said the association.

A similar support is required for Garment Retailers and Traders as currently they are not covered by MSME registration, said CMAI adding that the survival of retailers is important to create demand and avoid bad debts to the MSME manufacturers.

Many MSME members are dependent on the sub-contract orders from Large Manufactures, Exporters, and Retailers.

Since, the entire value chain is impacted, support package has to be made available to the entire Textile and Apparel Value chain (Textile to Retail – MSME + Large Companies).

"We once again request the Finance Minister to provide support to small manufactures by provide direct grants for in payment of wages for the lock down period and period up to September 2020. Small manufactures will not be able to sustain the losses from lock down and subsequent slow-down in demand. Absence of such grant could lead to up to 30% of the units closing down permanently leading to 1 crore job losses in the Textile & Apparel Value chain," said CMAI.